
A project to clean-up Newcastle’s former Clyde Street gasworks is now complete, after energy infrastructure company, Jemena, finalised its remediation works at the site on Thursday.
The Newcastle Gasworks site is located adjacent to Clyde Street and Chatham Road in Hamilton North. It is approximately 7.4 hectares in area.
The site operated as a gasworks from 1913 to 1985 under a different company. In 2006 Jemena acquired the site as part of a business transaction. Since then, it has invested over $11.5 million to remediate – using a cap and contain methodology – historical contamination at the site.
Project Director, Oliver King, detailed that the project will now move into a monitoring phase.
“Our next step is to demobilise the site, retaining a skeleton staff who will monitor the effectiveness of the controls we’ve put in place. The monitoring data will be provided to the independent EPA-accredited Site Auditor as part of the Statutory Audit process,” he said.
Jemena has remediated the Clyde Street site to a commercial-industrial standard using an EPA approved cap and contain methodology.
Mr King noted that while Jemena has not yet made any plans in relation to the future use of the site, the company is open to discussing with local businesses or developers how the site could be repurposed.
The remediation project at the Clyde Street gasworks commenced in October 2019, following several years of planning and investigations, community consultation, and the granting of consent from the New South Wales Government.
Activities taken throughout the remediation period involved the installation of a 510-metre subterranean wall to redirect groundwater flow away from contaminated materials.
At its peak the project created 44 jobs, including many for members of the Hunter region.
Mr King commented that Jemena had worked closely with the local community and businesses throughout the project.
“The support of the community was paramount throughout the project, and we thank them for their patience and understanding over not just the last eleven months, but over a number of years as we worked to plan and implement remediation works,” he said.