NB

Public health seeks chemicals of concern in soil after AIM fire

A review into possible soil impacts from the September industrial fire at American Iron and Metal's scrapyard will be finished by early November, as consultants check 12 locations in the Saint John area for possible harmful chemicals.

AIM's operations have been halted since the massive fire on Sept. 14. Several schools and businesses were closed on the day of the blaze as city firefighters battled a flaming three-storey pile of scrap material. Saint John residents were encouraged to stay indoors by the regional medical officer of health for hours due to the poor air quality from the fire.

In the days after the blaze, representatives of Port Saint John and the New Brunswick government formed a task force to investigate the fire, as well as past incidents and investigations, at the Saint John scrapyard.

Two weeks ago, the task force announced that consultants have been retained to study soil in community gardens for possible contamination. Regional medical officer of health Kimberly Barker told the city's public safety committee Wednesday that they had identified a list of possible chemicals for concern, and will be testing nine sites in the "plume" of the fire, as well as three equivalent-distance sites that weren't.

"We still don't know what the cause of the fire was, and that's not unexpected with such a complex fire," Barker said. "What we decided to do, with the consultants, is assume that it was an entire car that caught on fire ... (and) decide what chemicals would have been exuded from such a car fire.

"The chief (Kevin Clifford) kindly pointed out to us today that it was probably the equivalent of 10,000 car fires." 

The list of gardens sampled include Rainbow Park and Courtenay Bay in the south central peninsula, Shamrock Park, Crescent Valley, The Growing Place and the Rockwood Park entrance in the north end, Broncos Blooming and the Saint John Regional Correctional Centre in the east and Carleton in the west. Control sites outside of the plume were also listed at Dannell Drive, Harborview High, and the Samuel-de-Champlain field.

Barker said analysis of the plume showed that wind pushed smoke over the uptown area and the northeast from 2 p.m on the 14th until the wind shifted to blow the smoke back over the bay starting around 2 a.m. on the 15th.

She said that consultants CBCL Engineering and Environmental Services will be looking for chemicals of potential concern including "available metals," mercury and cyanide, certain chemicals associated with particulate air pollution including polychlorinated biphenyls, a carcinogen, volatile organic compounds and petroleum hydrocarbons.

Barker said that if the materials are found in the plume area, soil in the community garden beds may need to be replaced, with additional samples of the municipal compost site to determine if that's been contaminated. If the chemicals are found in the area not considered affected by the plume, she said that becomes a larger conversation with the city.

"We're really hoping that we're going to be able to demonstrate that neither the plume nor the control site have elevated risk to our vegetable growers," Barker told Brunswick News Thursday. "If that should not happen, that's an important question that will certainly need some in depth discussions with local government and the provincial government."

At the meeting, she added that public health is also working with the Saint John Regional Hospital to track hospital visits and checking other aspects of air quality. She noted that while the uptown area, because of industrial activities, has "never had a decent air quality, so to speak," it became elevated during the fire and fine particulate matter was "measured on a scale not previously seen."

Saint John fire Chief Kevin Clifford told the meeting that the Saint John fire department is performing its own after-action review of the actions and decisions made during the fire, including what he called a four-hour uninterrupted stream of radio communications.

Clifford said that 91 firefighters worked for 40 hours and 17 minutes from the first report of a fire at the scrapyard on the Saint John waterfront at 1:39 a.m. Sept. 14. Responders also came from Irving Oil, Atlantic Towing, KV Fire, Port Saint John and AIM itself, he said.

He said that there were two five-hour sessions speaking with responding firefighters, as well as those who assisted from Irving Oil, and that they're meeting with representatives from Port Saint John as well as reviewing text messages and phone calls to build the chronological record of the event.  

"I think this operation will be highlighted for years to come in terms of collaboration of multiple entities," Clifford said. He said the after-action review would be presented at the next meeting Dec. 5.

Mayor Donna Reardon told Brunswick News that the AIM fire is "probably one of the biggest major environmental events in New Brunswick" and that operations at the plant raise many questions about who's regulating and what's required for safety.

Committee chair David Hickey told Brunswick News that he wants "transparency and accountability" on the fire and that's why they had a provincial official come to give a report at the public meeting, saying it's important to ask for clear public health data to give those responding as many tools as possible to review the incident.

On Friday, the province's joint task force said the investigation and environmental site assessment are ongoing, and that Port Saint John is working on a structural assessment of the AIM terminal, according to a press release. Operations remain suspended at the site as the investigation continues.

- with files from Barbara Simpson

Andrew Bates, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Telegraph-Journal