SYDNEY, N.S. - One of Canada's most polluted industrial sites -- the infamous Sydney tar ponds in Cape Breton -- has been transformed into a welcoming, 39-hectare park.
The official opening for the park is today.
The cleanup has taken four years and cost more than 400-million dollars.
Open Hearth Park -- named after the Sydney Steel plant's open furnaces -- sits atop a solidified mixture of cement and one million tonnes of sewage, heavy metals and other toxic waste dumped during a century of steelmaking.
Many other multimillion-dollar cleanup plans had been proposed in the last 30 years, but they all led nowhere.
The new park features several sports fields, walking trails, art installations, a playground and murals chronicling the plant's troubled history.