An investigation into September’s fire at a Saint John scrapyard is nearing completion, according to the province.
A joint task force looking into the Sept. 14 events at American Iron and Metal (AIM) met again earlier this week.
The province said Friday that the task force’s report is expected to be released near the end of the month.
“AIM’s approval to operate remains suspended as the investigation continues,” the province said in a statement.
The fire inside a massive pile of crushed cars burned for more than 40 hours, prompting a voluntary city-wide shelter-in-place order due to air quality concerns.
It has also renewed calls from some in the community, including members of Saint John council, to shut down AIM Recycling once and for all.
Premier Blaine Higgs hinted that the facility never restart its operations, but said it was too early to make any decisions.
“That facility will not start up until an investigation is complete and we’re satisfied that it can run, and right now, given what’s happened leading into this, there’s a lot of doubt about that,” Higgs told reporters on Sept. 19.
Soil sampling and testing are also being undertaken at 12 community gardens as officials test for “chemicals of potential concern” in the soil.
Dr. Kimberley Barker, the regional medical officer of health, told Saint John council’s public safety committee on Oct. 25 that the rest results are due in mid-November.
“What we decided to do, together with the consultants, is assume that it was a car that caught on fire full of gas, still tires on, and exponentially decide what chemicals would have been exuded from such a car fire,” said Barker.
“The [fire] chief kindly pointed out to us that it was probably the equivalent of 10,000 car fires so that just stressed the importance of our decision in terms of the chemicals that were chosen.”
Barker said health officials will also investigate the air quality impacts caused by the industrial fire.
“The uptown [monitoring] location, based on it being essentially an industrial park area, has never really had a decent air quality, so to speak, so the levels that are fairly normal in this area are probably elevated compared to what we would want people to be experiencing on a daily basis,” she said.
“But, of course, that specific event did prompt fine particulate matter to be measured on a scale that we haven’t typically seen.”
Port Saint John is also reviewing its lease with AIM, but CEO Craig Bell Estabrooks has said it is too soon to say what the outcome of that review could be.
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