From Railway to Fairway in Niagara Falls

Niagara Falls, Ontario, attracts more than 14 million visitors annually. Now, there is another reason to visit — a new golf course, built on a brownfield just 1,500 yards away from the river and the falls.

On August 3, golf great John Daly celebrated Thundering Waters Golf Club, his first Canadian Signature golf course, by driving 20 balls 360 yards across the falls from Table Rock, Canada to Goat Island, U.S. Although it was difficult to follow the balls in the mist, it’s believed that he did hit the other side.

The project didn’t set out to be on a brownfield. “We wanted to develop a resort close to the falls. This was the closest land that we could find,” said Dragan Matovic, vice president and director of Thundering Waters. “It just happened to be a brownfield.”

Site History

The golf course was built on what had formerly been the Montrose Yard, first built in the 1870s. At one time the site was a major rail car classification facility for a high-speed railway connecting New York with Michigan.

The site has been home to a number of rail operations including a 20-stall locomotive roundhouse, a machine shop, coal, oil and sand houses, a repair shop and a car-cleaning track. In its heyday, Montrose Yard boasted 19 tracks for the receiving, sorting and dispatching of trains, including an area where freight was transferred between trucks to trains.

By the 1960s, Montrose was the largest and busiest yard on Canada Southern’s line. However, by 1985, when Canadian Pacific Railway assumed operations of Montrose Yard, it had shrunk dramatically and some of the land was turned to non-railway use.

In 2001, the rail line extending north from the yard through the city of Niagara Falls was purchased to make way for the new casino and other projects. Thundering Waters is situated on 24 hectares of this land.

Environmental Issues

Despite more than a century of railway use, the contamination was manageable. Fortunately, groundwater had been protected by dense underlying clay. However, 9,000 cubic meters (18,000 tons) of material was excavated and used to create a series of long, landscaped hills that act both as a sound and visual barrier to the adjacent active rail line.

Impacted soil was placed on polyethylene liners and capped with either clay or more polyethylene. Under a three-year remediation program, hydrocarbon breakdown is stimulated by passive introduction of air and the periodic addition of liquid nutrients. The end result is landscaped bio-berms that function as noise control features and visual screens.

Although the developer of the golf course didn’t have any experience with brownfields, they are pleased with both the process and the results.

“It was time consuming to get all of the various stakeholders to sign off on our remediation proposal,” said Matovic. “Otherwise, the project was well accepted by everyone involved. Preserving land as a golf course this close to the falls was seen as a desirable alternative to industrial development.”

Thundering Waters was scheduled to open to the public on September 19.