MINTO, N.B. -- More than 200 people packed into a public meeting in Minto, N.B. Tuesday evening, eager to hear an update from environment and health officials following a massive tire fire at a recycling facility in the community last month.
Flames quickly took over several acres of tires at the TRACC facility the evening of Dec. 20. It took 145 firefighters thousands of tonnes of sand and one week to bring the fire under control.
Officials weren’t able to say what caused the fire, but they did provide some new information at Tuesday’s meeting.
Dr. Cristin Muecke, New Brunswick’s deputy chief medical officer of health, said several water tests have been done on a nearby nursing home, health centre, schools, and the industrial park itself.
Muecke said there are no signs of any chemicals, though a water advisory remains in place.
“We will lift the do-not-consume advisory when we have a monitoring system in place, which means that we’ll have an early warning system that will pick up any movement of chemicals through the ground and the groundwater, well before they reach any drinking water wells,” she said.
A spokesperson with the Department of Social Development says the province will continue to pay for bottle water to be trucked to the W.G. Bishop Nursing Home.
Curtis Richardson, a spokesperson for TRACC Tire, says firefighters managed to save some of the tires and move them to a safe location.
The company says it will be up to the Department of Environment and Local Government to decide if the buried, burned tires will be dug up and removed, or stay on site.
TRACC Tire Recycling is the only tire recycling company in the province. The company is still picking up tires across the province, but hasn’t been able to repurpose them since the fire. Regardless, Richardson says the company doesn’t plan to lay off any of its 52 employees.
He says the equipment wasn’t damaged and the company hopes to move into a new building and reopen sometime this month. It may make some changes, such as storing tires in trailers, rather than having an open yard.
When the tires burned, oil was released, which raised environmental concerns.
TRACC hired environmental consultants, who said they were able to get affected runoff to stop, and are now separating the oil from the water.
While many of the residents’ questions were answered at Tuesday's meeting, some remain.
“I own an ice cream stand. I just bought it last summer, so I have a big loan to pay,” said local business owner Chanda Klassen. “I’m quite nervous that, you know, my operations could be affected.”
Still, she said the public meeting has made her feel reassured.
“They’re going to do everything they can to make sure that any damage or lasting effects are minimal,” said Klassen.
“What I heard was an excellent system in place to monitor water and protect the people,” said resident Patrick Bourque.
The New Brunswick government has also hired an independent consultant to keep an eye on how things progress.
There is no word on how much the cleanup will cost, but officials said it will take years, not months.
They also said the investigation into what caused the fire will likely conclude this month.
As for possible fines or penalties, Environment Minister Jeff Carr says it’s too early to talk about that, while the cause is still unknown.
“I think we’re being watched here,” he said. “We want to make sure we get this right…we look forward to the investigations that will happen.”
Carr says the company was handed a ministerial order in 2004-05 for having too many tires on site. Ownership of the company changed in 2015, and when the site was last inspected in 2016, everything was fine.
