chansen
Had a point all along
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Burlington church faces high costs after human remains found under walkway
Earlier this summer, East Plains United Church began fixing a small walkway but when crews broke ground, they uncovered decades-old human remains.
www.chch.com
Seems a United church in Aldershot, Ontario, decided to fix up a walkway. Armed with a $12,000 government grant for a walkway, it has turned into a six figure disaster, as the contractor found an old oil tank, then human remains around the tank.
The article is a little sloppy, I think, because it blames the lack of records related to the existence of the tank to a fire in the early 1900s. It may have been installed in the early 1900s (and maybe not), but the tank was probably abandoned about 50 years ago. There are going to be people in that church who knew or heard about a tank, but may not have remembered where it was. Either way, it was filled with sand so it wouldn't float to the surface or implode, showing that the abandonment was deliberate, and left there.
What's even more amazing are the human bones found around the tank. 100% they found those bones when they installed the tank almost 100 years ago, and the bones simply became backfill to the original installers, who could have dug that by hand and certainly saw those bones. The property has been a church for 200 years, and people forget where folks are buried if the original markers disappear.
These days, you can't dig up an oil tank and drag it to the scrappers. It sucks because it's pretty easy to tell if the tank has been leaking. Some well made tanks don't. Part of me doesn't understand why you can't just throw it in a bin. The problem is the sand they filled it with is certainly contaminated, possibly very contaminated if they didn't pump out the fuel oil first. That has to be dealt with, but it's literally contained. Ship it to Fort McMurray where all the sand is contaminated, lol.
This is an interesting case relevant to a lot of old churches I'd guess. Locals were buried near your churches. Records may have been spotty at best, lost, or gone up in flames. I know if I was managing that project, I'd have warned the congregation that I need to dig down a foot or more to remove organic soil to achieve proper compaction, which explains why it cost so much to begin with, and that it's not uncommon to find things buried in places like that. I'd almost expect an oil tank there. Previous congregants left a ticking time bomb for their future church. What saved them $200 back in the 70s is now going to seriously stress the community.