N.B. plans to beef up regulatory powers after AIM fire

Article content

The New Brunswick government plans to beef up its enforcement powers and implement stiffer fines for scrapyard operators in the wake of the massive American Iron and Metal (AIM) fire in Saint John last fall.

Public Safety Minister Kris Austin introduced Tuesday a series of amendments to the Salvage Dealers Licensing Act, citing the recent findings of a provincial task force charged with investigating the Sept. 14 and 15 blaze at the waterfront AIM scrapyard.

In a press release Tuesday, Austin said the government is taking those findings “seriously,” with proposed amendments designed to better prevent such a fire, or in the worst-case scenario, respond to such a fire.

Those amendments cleared second reading Wednesday and are now headed to committee for debate. The changes come as AIM is challenging his decision to suspend their salvage dealer’s licence in a new lawsuit, calling it “unreasonable” and disputing the facts of the task force.

Under the proposed new rules, New Brunswick’s public safety minister would have the power to temporarily suspend a salvage dealer’s licence, without a hearing, while a non-compliance investigation is conducted. “Special conditions” could also be applied to a licence by the minister under the new powers.

Businesses or people found to be running a scrapyard without a licence could face a minimum fine of $1,000 per day, according to the Department of Justice and Public Safety. That’s more than quadruple the current minimum fine of $240.

And in order to get a licence, the Department of Justice and Public Safety would require a fire marshal-approved fire safety plan and site layout to accompany every licensing application.

The provincial task force found AIM didn’t have an adequate emergency plan to handle the size of last September’s massive fire, nor did the Saint John Fire Department have the resources to battle such a blaze.

An Atlantic Towing vessel, which happened to be in port that day, was left to pump 17 million gallons of water onto the fire over 17 hours.

Saint John Mayor Donna Reardon said Wednesday she was “thrilled” to see the provincial government hadn’t forgotten about the massive fire and is now acting on the task force’s findings.

However, Reardon cautioned this is just the “start” of the changes needed.

In the case of AIM, the task force found that not only weren’t the appropriate firefighting resources in place but the fire risks associated with AIM’s operations were “significantly different” than when the company first got regulatory approval for its industrial metal shredder.

“How do you design a fire plan for a risk that isn’t declared?” Reardon said.

At the time of the fire, AIM’s scrap metal piles were two-and-a-half times larger than the size permitted under the National Fire Code, the task force found.

“That’s where the monitoring comes in,” Reardon said. “Who’s monitoring it?”

Operations have yet to resume at AIM’s Gateway Street scrapyard following the fire. The company is currently suing the province’s environment department to lift the suspension on its approval to operate for the facility, which has been in effect since Sept. 19.

On December 29, Austin revoked the salvage dealer’s licence for that operation, with AIM having 90 days to apply for judicial review of the decision. On March 27, one day before the deadline, AIM filed another lawsuit seeking to have the decision reversed.

In the lawsuit, AIM challenged the task force, saying it acted without regulatory authority and that Port Saint John was in a conflict of interest as its landlord. It alleges Austin acted “arbitrarily and unreasonably” by relying on the task force findings, and by revoking it indefinitely when a “narrower” penalty would have been sufficient under legislation.

Scrapyard operators weren’t consulted on proposed changes

In the wake of the massive AIM fire, the Department of Justice and Public Safety did a regulatory crackdown on the province’s 87 scrapyards. Ten of those – including three AIM operations – were issued compliance orders by the province’s fire marshal.

Greer’s Mountain Salvage is still waiting on a contractor to put up a fence to comply with its order, according to its manager Andy Shaw. The small Hanwell scrapyard, situated in the Greenview Industrial Park, has already installed no-smoking signs and fire extinguishers at the request of the fire marshal.

Shaw said he doesn’t understand the fire plan requirement for an operation of his size because he doesn’t store material for more than a week on site. All the vehicles his scrapyard handles are also stripped of flammable materials as required, he added.

“When my cars come into the yard, they get set down on the ground, they go through them right quick and take the batteries right out of them,” he said. “They then go on a rack and get all the freon drained out of them, all the oil drained, all the gas drained out of them – and then they go into the pile.”

Shaw said he thinks the government has taken a heavy-handed approach with scrapyard operators in the wake of the AIM fire. By the time he fulfills all the fire marshal’s requirements, he estimates he’ll have spent $100,000.

Salvage dealers weren’t consulted about the proposed legislative amendments, confirmed Jessica Hearn, spokesperson with the Department of Justice and Public Safety.

“The changes are meant to protect public safety risks associated with salvage operations,” she said in an email.

Greer’s hasn’t had a fire in 20 years, Shaw said, and even with the soon-to-be installation of a fence, he doesn’t expect it will prevent a person from coming into his scrapyard and intentionally lighting a fire in the middle of the night.

“The government should start its own scrapyard and take in all the salvage – every vehicle, every piece of steel that comes out of the province – into their own yard and we’ll see them manage it because they aren’t going to be able to do it.”

– With files from Andrew Bates