Whitney Pier - Geography

Geography

It was separated from Sydney's central business district by Canada's largest integrated steel mill, as well as a large railway yard and tracks running from the harbour to coal mines in nearby New Waterford and Glace Bay.

The geography of Whitney Pier is defined by its relationship to the heavy industry of coal mining and steel manufacturing. The International Shipping Pier is located at the southern edge of the neighbourhood, adjacent to the steel plant property and is the current location for coal imports that feed the Lingan Generating Station, with the coal being hauled by the Sydney Coal Railway. From 1968–2001, the Cape Breton Development Corporation's Devco Railway hauled coal from coal mines northeast of Whitney Pier to this shipping pier for international export; the last coal mine in the area known as Industrial Cape Breton closed in November 2001, forcing the power plant to rely on coal imports for the first time ever.

From the 1880s to 1968, the Sydney and Louisburg Railway and its predecessors hauled coal from various coal mines to the shipping piers at this location; it was the owner of the S&L during the 1890s-1900s, Henry M. Whitney, who the community is named after - "the Whitney Pier".

The steel mill was responsible for the neighbourhood's economic growth during the 20th century but it is also responsible for its economic decline as well. From the steel mill's inception in 1901 until the mid-1980s, the mill was fueled with coke, a byproduct of cooking raw coal over a multiple hour period. To do this, coal was shipped by the Sydney & Louisburg Railway (and later the Devco Railway) from the mines to a large battery of coke ovens bordering the railway lines on the south side of the neighbourhood along Frederick Street on a hill overlooking the steel mill. The coke ovens produced coke for the steel mill's oxygen blast furnaces 24 hours a day, 365 days a year for almost 90 years.

The resulting run off of contaminants from the coke production, as well as general contaminants from the steel mill itself, drained into Muggah Creek, a tidal estuary that geographically separated the steel mill and Whitney Pier from Sydney's central business district.

Currently, after several decades of environmental reviews and scientific studies, the federal and provincial governments are undertaking a $400 million cleanup of the site which will see the industrial contaminants in the estuary sealed with cement.