At a court appearance on Wednesday morning, American Iron and Metal (AIM) pleaded guilty and received a $292.50 fine from the province of New Brunswick for operating its Moncton scrapyard without a licence on May 23.
The facility was already in operation when a provincial inspector came on that day to do a final inspection, according to Crown prosecutor Ashley Martin.
Lewisville residents say the noise and odour emanating from the small industrial park near their homes has become markedly worse since AIM opened the scrapyard in March.
“I was sitting in my sunroom and this huge bang happened. I jumped, the windows shook, the whole house was shaking and it’s happened multiple times. It’s like mini explosions,” Lewisville resident Jo-Anne McCarthy said on Wednesday.
She’s lived in the neighbourhood for 29 years, and said she never had an issue with the small amount of noise from the industrial park before AIM set up.
“One time a couple weeks ago it lasted till quarter to 10 (p.m.) and I was just livid,” she said.
She and other residents have reached out to city councillors and started a petition to have the AIM facility moved to another location.
Roy MacMullin, who bought his Lewisville home in 2018, said the industrial activity near his home wasn’t an issue until this spring.
He likened the noise from AIM to “a heavy metal band playing 16 hours a day.”
“You can’t move all these homes, you have to move this company into an industrial park,” he said.
Ward 1 Coun. Paulette Thériault said complaints about the Lewisville industrial park have been pouring in since she was elected in 2008.
In 2016, École Champlain, a francophone elementary school, was moved to a new location farther away from the park after years of complaints about noise and air quality.
Thériault said it’s unlikely the city would be able to force AIM to move because the industrial park had been “grandfathered in”.
“What we can do is stop (AIM) from expanding, we can put rules and regulations in place, particularly from an environmental perspective, that really restrains what we’re doing so we need to think outside the box,” Thériault said.
AIM has previously drawn controversy in the province after a fire at its Saint John facility in September prompted a citywide air quality warning.
In October, a jury ruled following an inquest that a workplace death that occurred at the Saint John facility in 2021 was accidental.
MacMullin said the previous controversies are concerning.
“I don’t have a lot of confidence in this company based on that Saint John issue that they have the interests of the residents of this area at heart,” he said.
McCarthy said when she saw the AIM sign she immediately thought of the Saint John fire and “became worried about issues other than the noise.”
“I walked through the park the other day and I saw this mountain of scrap that I have never seen before never. There was scrap (in the industrial park) and there was noise but never to this degree,” she said.
MacMullin, McCarthy and other residents will present their issue to city council.
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