In spite of area residents’ complaints, there will be few changes to the handling and cleanup of polystyrene foam insulation being installed at a seniors building under construction.
“Until we’re told we have to do something different, what are we supposed to do?” PFC Constructors Inc. project manager Vincent Marando told Sudbury.com.
“If you’re running your business, and you’re doing everything according to the law, are you going to incur costs that go above and beyond?”
Aside from installing more fencing around the property, Marando said nothing else is going to change at the construction site. Polystyrene foam will continue being installed during the next three weeks just as it has been, with another two walls of the six-sided building to be covered.
The city has also ordered the company to clean out two catch basins and install filters on them.
Best known by its brand name, Styrofoam, fragments of polystyrene foam from the construction site has been “snowing” onto the Minnow Lake residential neighbourhood which the six-storey building overlooks, prompting various complaints from area residents.
The problem, Marando explained, is that once the material is installed at the side of the building, it has to be “rasped level,” which requires crews to shave it flush across the side of the building. Wind proceeds to blow away chunks and small beads of the light material.
Workers do not use vacuums while they’re rasping, and the work area is not covered.
“It’s part of the process, unfortunately. We’re doing what we can,” Marando said. “On a bad, windy day, we’re going to stop it, but then there’s going to be days we’re not doing it where the stuff gets everywhere. It’s just part of that procedure. It sucks for those nine people, I get it.”
The company has been cleaning up material on the ground every day using vacuums, he said.
Sudbury.com visited the site of a residential yard in the neighbourhood earlier this week after a crew had cleaned it, and saw a sprinkling of beads, and some finger-sized chunks, still there
Disappointed to learn that little will change at the construction site abutting his backyard, Camelot Drive resident Kevin Cooper told Sudbury.com that with no legal consequences, the developer appears to be left free to do whatever they want.
“I don’t know what else we’ve got for recourse,” he said.
“If you or I go someplace and we litter on someone’s property, generally speaking, you’re supposed to be responsible for what you litter, are you not?”
Area residents lodged eight complaints through the city’s 311 customer service line as of earlier this week, and reached out to both the Ministry of Labour and Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change.
In a written statement to Sudbury.com, a Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change spokesperson said they have received “numerous complaints from the public about wind-blown Styrofoam from construction activities at an apartment building at 400 Second Avenue.”
On July 17, ministry staff spoke to area residents and asked the property owner to clean up the affected properties. The property owner also provided a cleanup plan to the ministry.
Sudbury.com sent several follow-up questions to the ministry, and requested a phone interview.
A ministry spokesperson failed to address the interview request in an emailed response, but affirmed they take “all threats to the environment very seriously.”
“The ministry will be following up with the responsible parties to ensure actions are taken to clean-up and remediate any impacts to the environment,” they said.
A City of Greater Sudbury spokesperson said the municipality’s environment compliance officers “ordered that two catch basins be cleaned out with a vacuum truck and that a filter be installed on them to prevent any additional material from entering them.”
The officers will be inspecting the site to ensure it is done correctly.
From a city bylaw perspective, the spokesperson reported that existing municipal legislation does not cover this situation.
The city spokesperson also shed additional light on the province's response, noting the property owner submitted a “voluntary abatement plan” to the province and that the ministry would “consider issuing an order to comply if cleanup does not occur.”
Although expressing sympathy for area residents’ concerns, which he clarified are legitimate, Marando also said the complaints originate from “one disgruntled guy” lashing out because he doesn’t want the development in his backyard.
The “one disgruntled guy” he cited is not one of the people Sudbury.com has been in contact with. As for neighbourhood opposition, Cooper said the Styrofoam issue has fuelled his and other area residents’ opposition to an expansion the property’s owner, Bawa Hospitality Group, has proposed.
Marando also noted that the use of polystyrene foam has been common practice for decades, and similar incidents of blowing material have already happened in Greater Sudbury.
Earlier this week, a South End resident emailed Sudbury.com to let us know she’d found Styrofoam fragments hanging on cobwebs and floating on the surface of her garden pond.
Marando took umbrage with Sudbury.com’s reporting of styrene as carcinogenic, calling it the type of “fear-mongering” those opposed to the project have been perpetuating.
Last year, the CBC reported on a similar incident of scattered polystyrene foam in a Toronto neighbourhood. In their reporting, Toronto Metropolitan University's School of Occupational Public Health associate professor Thomas Tenkate is quoted as describing the material as carrying “a range of both acute and chronic effects … such as cancer and endocrine disrupting symptoms as well as issues to do with ... skin, eye irritation and respiratory irritation.”
Tenkate, whose area of research is occupational exposures, has made the cancer connection in CBC coverage of events such as this more than once.
Tenkate was unavailable for comment.
Marando noted that the material safety data sheet provided by the product’s supplier, EPS Depot Inc., makes no mention of it being carcinogenic. He distributed this data sheet to area residents this week.
Tyler Clarke covers city hall and political affairs for Sudbury.com.
