Guano squad to tackle toxic tower
By Paul Wilson
The Hamilton Spectator(Mar 16, 2006)
Three men in space suits pull on their respirators, gather up their whisks and wire brushes and march bravely into the toxic tower.
They are the guano squad who will scrape and chip and sweep until Hamilton's 148-year-old lighthouse is safe for all. This is the first step in bringing the forgotten tower back. If all goes well, you will one day be able to climb its 79 twisting steps and peer out, just the way lighthouse keeper George Thompson did for the first time in 1858.
The tower has been off limits to all but the pigeons.
Long ago, they found their way through a broken window or two. And ever since, they have been leaving their tangy goo. Layer upon layer of guano coats the lantern room and the stairs leading up to it.
When Scottish mason John Brown built the tower of massive chunks of limestone, it was the tallest structure for miles around, five-storeys tall.
Now the lighthouse is dwarfed by all. Beside it is the liftbridge that crosses the Burlington Ship Canal. The steel frame of that bridge is twice the height of the old lighthouse.
And overhead is the Skyway. Once it was four lanes, and then it was 10. Some 25 million vehicles rumble over every year. What would that first lighthouse keeper make of all this?
His cottage, a year older than the tower itself, is still there too, front door swinging off the hinges.
The two structures are Canada's only complete light station left on Lake Ontario. And for three years the volunteers of the Beach Canal Lighthouse Group have plotted ways to preserve the tower and the cottage.
They're federal property. They belong to Fisheries and Oceans Canada and it doesn't need them. Two years ago, Duane Blanchard, a regional director of the department, got his first visit from the lighthouse group.
"They're totally passionate about the history of those structures," he says. "I like that. It's so Canadian."
After so many years in the shadows, the lighthouse is noticed now because of the new lakefront trail. On nice days, hundreds hike, bike and skate past that monument.
So the lighthouse group had little difficulty attracting a couple of hundred people to sign on. Dave Auger is their executive director.
He told Fisheries and Oceans his group hoped to get the lighthouse and cottage for $1. They didn't want to necessarily own the structures forever, just long enough to fix them up. Then the buildings, brought to museum quality, could be given back to the people.
But Fisheries and Oceans can't be turning over a toxic site. Workers removing bird droppings are at risk of exposure to airborne fungal spores. These can remain infectious for decades and can cause respiratory infections.
Simcoe environmental consultant Robert Lovegrove -- whose experience with pigeon and bat droppings ranges from U of T to the Parliament buildings -- put together specifications for the job. It was tendered and the final price for Operation Guano is about $20,000.
Yesterday an outfit called Restoration Environmental Contractors of Gormley started to work. Site supervisor Barry Gilhooly set up a three-chamber decontamination trailer, complete with shower.
He had a man-lift ready to spirit his crew to the top of the tower, but the wind was fierce, the kind that could have dashed ships onto rocks in the 1800s.
So instead, the three-man crew entered the tower through the old wooden door. The first flight of winding stairs has been torn from the walls, so the crew used ladders to reach the top.
Crew member Edgar Bonifaz is from Ecuador. So is one of his mates. The other is from Cuba. Bonifaz says this is not their first lighthouse. A couple of years ago, they cleaned the guano out of one in New Jersey.
The fast way to do this job would be to powerblast from the top and hose it all down to the base. But that could damage the old structure, so this is being done the low-tech way. They do seal the windows to achieve negative-pressure in the tower, to keep everything inside while they clean. The bird poop then gets double-bagged and trucked to the landfill.
Come spring, guano gone, the fundraising and restoration work begins in earnest. The stone must be repointed, inside and out. The lantern room must be put in working order. The steps must be rebuilt, using as much of the original wood as possible.
The target for completion is 2008 -- 150 years after George Thompson first lit that coal-oil flame.
You can contact the Beach Canal Lighthouse Group at 905-681-6233 or lighthouse1858@hotmail.com
pwilson@thespec.com
905-526-3391
Photo by Gary Yokoyama
In protective gear, from left, Marcelo Cajamarca, Edgar Bonifaz and Manuel Illeas get ready to enter the Burlington Bay Ship Canal lighthouse (behind them) to clean up the guano that's piled up from years of neglect of the 148-year-old structure.
By Paul Wilson
The Hamilton Spectator(Mar 16, 2006)
Three men in space suits pull on their respirators, gather up their whisks and wire brushes and march bravely into the toxic tower.
They are the guano squad who will scrape and chip and sweep until Hamilton's 148-year-old lighthouse is safe for all. This is the first step in bringing the forgotten tower back. If all goes well, you will one day be able to climb its 79 twisting steps and peer out, just the way lighthouse keeper George Thompson did for the first time in 1858.
The tower has been off limits to all but the pigeons.
Long ago, they found their way through a broken window or two. And ever since, they have been leaving their tangy goo. Layer upon layer of guano coats the lantern room and the stairs leading up to it.
When Scottish mason John Brown built the tower of massive chunks of limestone, it was the tallest structure for miles around, five-storeys tall.
Now the lighthouse is dwarfed by all. Beside it is the liftbridge that crosses the Burlington Ship Canal. The steel frame of that bridge is twice the height of the old lighthouse.
And overhead is the Skyway. Once it was four lanes, and then it was 10. Some 25 million vehicles rumble over every year. What would that first lighthouse keeper make of all this?
His cottage, a year older than the tower itself, is still there too, front door swinging off the hinges.
The two structures are Canada's only complete light station left on Lake Ontario. And for three years the volunteers of the Beach Canal Lighthouse Group have plotted ways to preserve the tower and the cottage.
They're federal property. They belong to Fisheries and Oceans Canada and it doesn't need them. Two years ago, Duane Blanchard, a regional director of the department, got his first visit from the lighthouse group.
"They're totally passionate about the history of those structures," he says. "I like that. It's so Canadian."
After so many years in the shadows, the lighthouse is noticed now because of the new lakefront trail. On nice days, hundreds hike, bike and skate past that monument.
So the lighthouse group had little difficulty attracting a couple of hundred people to sign on. Dave Auger is their executive director.
He told Fisheries and Oceans his group hoped to get the lighthouse and cottage for $1. They didn't want to necessarily own the structures forever, just long enough to fix them up. Then the buildings, brought to museum quality, could be given back to the people.
But Fisheries and Oceans can't be turning over a toxic site. Workers removing bird droppings are at risk of exposure to airborne fungal spores. These can remain infectious for decades and can cause respiratory infections.
Simcoe environmental consultant Robert Lovegrove -- whose experience with pigeon and bat droppings ranges from U of T to the Parliament buildings -- put together specifications for the job. It was tendered and the final price for Operation Guano is about $20,000.
Yesterday an outfit called Restoration Environmental Contractors of Gormley started to work. Site supervisor Barry Gilhooly set up a three-chamber decontamination trailer, complete with shower.
He had a man-lift ready to spirit his crew to the top of the tower, but the wind was fierce, the kind that could have dashed ships onto rocks in the 1800s.
So instead, the three-man crew entered the tower through the old wooden door. The first flight of winding stairs has been torn from the walls, so the crew used ladders to reach the top.
Crew member Edgar Bonifaz is from Ecuador. So is one of his mates. The other is from Cuba. Bonifaz says this is not their first lighthouse. A couple of years ago, they cleaned the guano out of one in New Jersey.
The fast way to do this job would be to powerblast from the top and hose it all down to the base. But that could damage the old structure, so this is being done the low-tech way. They do seal the windows to achieve negative-pressure in the tower, to keep everything inside while they clean. The bird poop then gets double-bagged and trucked to the landfill.
Come spring, guano gone, the fundraising and restoration work begins in earnest. The stone must be repointed, inside and out. The lantern room must be put in working order. The steps must be rebuilt, using as much of the original wood as possible.
The target for completion is 2008 -- 150 years after George Thompson first lit that coal-oil flame.
You can contact the Beach Canal Lighthouse Group at 905-681-6233 or lighthouse1858@hotmail.com
pwilson@thespec.com
905-526-3391
Photo by Gary Yokoyama
In protective gear, from left, Marcelo Cajamarca, Edgar Bonifaz and Manuel Illeas get ready to enter the Burlington Bay Ship Canal lighthouse (behind them) to clean up the guano that's piled up from years of neglect of the 148-year-old structure.