The fire in Sysco's south substation started at approximately 2015 hours on May 25, 1994. Six in-use askarel (PCB) transformers were involved in the fire. Following is a chronology of the actions taken by the various agencies in response to the fire.

Sysco

There were several persons who either saw the start of the fire directly or noticed the effects of the power outage. Aware of the fire were the railway crew who were shunting cars on the nearby track; a Sysco supervisor who happened to be coming across Victoria Road, Sydney; and a Sysco supervisor in the finishing mill who experienced the power failure.

The first call was made by the finishing mill supervisor to the gate indicating a power failure as a result of the start of the fire. The gate called the Sydney Fire Department at 2022 hours.

When the Sysco maintenance supervisor realized the fire was in the south substation, he immediately confirmed the presence of PCBs in the substation and advised the fire officials on the scene. At this time, fire officials first considered an evacuation of the downwind areas. The weather conditions at the time were very overcast with low cloud, light rain, and wind from the north.

Sysco established an operations center in their administration building by approximately 2130 hrs. This management group communicated with the field operations throughout the incident.

City of Sydney

The Sydney Fire Department arrived at the plant site at approximately 2030 hours; however, they could not begin to fight the fire because the power to the substation was still live. There were three live feeds into the substation. Nova Scotia Power Inc. and Sysco officials took approximately one hour to ensure all three feeds were secured and shut down. This response time was necessary because of the physical distance between all switching stations. Nova Scotia Power officials arrived at the plant from the Victoria Junction substation at approximately 2125 hours. The power connections were double checked by approximately 2130 hours at which time the fire department started to fight the fire.

At approximately 2055 hours, the Fire Dept. received confirmation that there were PCBs in the substation; an evacuation downwind was then considered. After consultation with CANUTEC, the decision to proceed with the evacuation was made, which began at approximately 2230 hours, after preparations had been made to receive evacuees.

Police and Fire officials conducted a door to door notification of the residents. Approximately 500 people were evacuated from an area 800 meters downwind of the fire scene. There were several people who refused to leave their homes and several others who travelled directly to the homes of relatives or friends. This resulted in problems with registrations and inquiries at the reception centre. Several civilian agencies assisted with the operations at the reception centre including the St. John Ambulance and the Salvation Army.

The fire was put out shortly after 0000 hrs on May 26, 1994. A visual inspection of the condition of the transformers indicated that no breach of the transformers had occurred and that no PCB had spilled or leaked. Police and fire officials left the site at approximately 0030 hours, May 26/94. Residents were allowed to return to their homes at approximately 0230 hours May 26/94.

The evacuation of residents had proceeded without activation of the Emergency Alerting System as outlined in Sydney's emergency plan. The City Manager was informed of the incident through a call to his home at 2214 hours by a city alderman who was being evacuated. The City Manager immediately proceeded to the Emergency Operations Centre at City Hall and called together his emergency management personnel. He also obtained the services of a police officer to act as information officer. The area of the evacuation was delineated and the media was notified.

All members of the Emergency Operations Centre were assembled by approximately 2300 hours. At this time, the fire was under control, the response to the incident was well coordinated and the evacuation was in progress. Based on this, several decisions were made, including 1) not to activate the emergency operations room; 2) not to appoint an emergency site manager, and 3) not to declare a State of Local Emergency.

A media briefing was held in the Council Chambers by the Mayor and the City Manager. The Fire and Police Chiefs were also made available to answer questions.

An orderly stand-down of the City response personnel was started shortly after 0015 hours, May 26, once site security was confirmed. All on-site response personnel were instructed to report to the hospital for medical monitoring and examinations. Based on consultations with various agencies, a decision was made to allow people to return to their homes at approximately 0230 hours May 26. Note: at this point, there was no input from health officials.

Two debriefing sessions were held with City of Sydney staff on May 26, 1994, at 1400 hours for response personnel and at 1500 hours for control center staff. The main concern which came out of these sessions was that the Emergency Alerting System was not activated properly and thus the overall management of the incident was not as effective as it might have been, although the on-site management of the situation was efficient, effective and well coordinated.

Additional observations made as a result of this incident include the need for training of staff on emergency operations and the need to exercise the city's emergency plan. Other concerns related to the evacuation of Sysco personnel working downwind of the fire.

Nova Scotia Government Agencies/Environment Canada

The Nova Scotia Emergency Measures Organization (EMO) was called by the Fire Department by 2100 hours. EMO advised a local Nova Scotia Dept. of Environment (NSDOE) officer, who arrived on the scene by 2130 hours. CANUTEC was contacted for advice on the situation. Standard procedure as outlined by CANUTEC recommended evacuation of residents within 800 meters. Based on this information, the fire department requested the police to initiate an evacuation of the downwind areas of Whitney Pier. The areas to be evacuated included all streets bounded by Victoria Road, Railroad Street, and Ferry Street.

Note: CANUTEC called the Canadian Coast Guard Operations Centre at approximately 2225 hours, to report this incident as per their standard operating procedure. The Coast Guard Operations Centre in turn notified the Nova Scotia Department of Environment, Halifax office, and Environment Canada at approximately 2230 hours. Throughout the incident, there were various communications between Halifax and Sydney emergency staff. The details of the transformers which were involved were later relayed to Environment Canada by the Fire Chief.

Note: The reporting of this incident did not go through the normal channels.

The Nova Scotia Department of Labour representative heard about the fire on the radio. He was in contact with Sysco by 2130 hours. He inspected the site the next day.

NSDOE met with Sysco officials the morning of May 26 to inspect the condition of the transformers. At that time, a visual assessment was done which indicated some transformers had possibly lost some product. The transformers were opened by Sysco officials late in the day and the first estimate of 180 litres was made, based on one completely empty and one half full. Several assumptions were made to account for the worst case in determining the actual amount of PCB liquid involved. This maximum amount is now confirmed to be 224 litres. The exact amount lost will never be known.

There were discussions on May 26, 1994, between Environment Canada (EC) and NSDOE as to which agency would take the lead; i.e. Environment Canada, acting under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (CEPA) as it was in-use transformers which were involved and which is regulated by Environment Canada; or NSDOE as a response to a land-based pollution incident, which is provincial responsibility. It was decided that NSDOE would be the lead environmental agency; however, EC would provide sampling and analytical expertise through its Environmental Emergencies Section.

On May 27, 1994, officials from EC met with Sydney NSDOE staff to discuss the sampling program which was to be conducted. A total of 31 samples were analysed for PCBs and 23 samples were analysed for dioxins/furans. This analysis was conducted on surface samples, drinking water supplies, soils and air samples. This total of 54 samples revealed only three results in excess of the applicable criteria. These were samples for surface concentration for dioxin and were obtained within the transformer cabinet itself. The sampling program had the added bonus of air quality data obtained from National Air Pollution Surveillance (NAPS) monitors and Tar Ponds Project monitors which were located downwind of the fire scene.

Subsequent soil testing for various individuals in the residential areas downwind of the fire was also carried out. There were an additional 10 soil/rhubarb samples taken in the downwind areas. All of these samples were non-detectable for PCBs. Each of the property owners requesting this analysis were informed of the results; however, the information was not released publicly.

A door-to-door public information program was initiated to get information to the residents affected by the evacuation. A package of questions and answers including the results of sampling was provided. This information program resulted in approximately 15 calls to the NSDOE from residents with specific concerns.

Communication of the sample results was directly between Environment Canada and NSDOE, who then passed the information on to other agencies and the public.

The provincial medical health officer travelled to Sydney on May 27 to speak to the local residents and the media on the risk associated with this incident. His comments were based on a worst case scenario and assumed all PCBs were lost. His assessment was that the risk from this particular incident was considered low.

It was felt that the persons who had the most potential impacts were the actual response personnel from Sysco and the City of Sydney. Separate meetings were held with these groups on June 11 and 12, 1994.

A Department of Labour representative visited the site on May 26, 1997. Access to the building had been taped off and no one was allowed to enter without proper protective clothing.

The Department of Labour also met with the fire and police officials regarding proper contamination of clothing and equipment. The Department of Labour also met with Sysco workers, and fire and police personnel on June 11 and 12, 1994, to discuss their concerns.

Recommendations

Each agency taking part in this incident provided recommendations on response to such incidents in the future. These are too numerous to mention here but highlights of the recommendations follow.

1. Each response agency should appoint and clearly identify, as early as possible, a single point of contact who will be the focal point for the exchange of technical information in an incident.
2. All communications and activities during an emergency must be logged.
3. The initial report of this incident was slow in reaching the one window reporting system at 1-800-565-1633 (Canadian Coast Guard Operations Centre). There was also confusion early in the incident over whether the transformers and their contents were affected by the fire. This confusion delayed, by a day, inspections of the transformers (by qualified staff in protective clothing) and field sampling. It also meant that useful technical information (e.g. weather forecasts, trajectory modelling, etc.) was not provided when key decisions were being made.
4. As in the past, the REET concept should be used to coordinate actions of the lead and support agencies. Possibly a meeting or a conference call of the key support agencies should be convened and situation reports prepared and distributed, at least daily, to exchange information and plan the activities of the day. This approach can be used at both the policy and operational levels.
5. As a number of agencies have legislation which relates to the release of chemical, a mechanism will have to be established for coordinating enforcement activities. The lead agency will have to provide leadership in this area.
6. Site control and safety aspects could have been improved in this incident. As an example, a number of individuals were working around the building, after the fire had been extinguished, with no protective clothing. Until the results of samples were available, it was unknown whether these people were working in a hazardous environment.
7. Full disclosure of information, once verified and checked internally, is the right approach.
8. Sysco should maintain a complete inventory of all hazardous materials or chemicals on its property and locations and provide that inventory to all designated government agencies, i.e. Labour, Environment, Fire, Police.
9. On site inspections should be conducted annually by Fire and Police officials to familiarize them with the plant.
10. All Sysco employees involved in accidents, fires or environmental spills should be properly trained in the use of personal protective equipment.
11. Sydney Steel Corporation will designate specific individuals to be emergency coordinators between plant departments and outside agencies.
12. A plan will be implemented to restrict access to the plant and the emergency site by unauthorized personnel.
13. Sysco will provide an operations center in their main building.
14. NSDOE will compile and maintain a list of reference materials and product specialists. Field staff and standby staff will be trained in their retrieval.
15. In any incident where an evacuation is recommended, NSDOE staff will ensure that the Municipal Emergency plan has been properly implemented and that Health officials are part of any decision on evacuation and the return of residents. Once an evacuation order had been announced during a hazmat incident, no return of residents shall occur until proper confirmatory sampling and analysis has been completed.
16. NSDOE will develop a standard communications log form and all staff will be trained in the importance of its use.
17. NSDOE will communicate to all municipal response agencies, the importance of reporting spill incidents and the benefits of the one number reporting structure.
18. Additional training will be provided on the roles and responsibilities of all response agencies to NSDOE staff and municipal agencies.