CNBNews

Statement from Commissioner Director Louis Cappelli Jr.

The statement below is by Commissioner Director Louis Cappelli Jr. on behalf of the Board of Commissioners regarding the fire in south Camden City at the EMR facility.   

“Over the last 20 hours, first responders from all over Camden County made their way into the city to assist the Camden City Fire Department with a three-story fire that had its smoke plume blanket the region. Before I go any further, I want to thank all of the men and women who worked on suppressing this fire and the environmental monitoring that needed to take place to ensure the health and welfare of the residents of the Waterfront South and Bergen Square neighborhoods. Those residents in the city and throughout the county who were impacted are our number one priority and I want to applaud the service of the individuals in uniform who fought this fire all day and night.

 

That said, the fact that we had to deal with a four-alarm fire is unacceptable and it was appalling that residents did not feel safe in their own neighborhood based on the thick smoke that enveloped the city and could be seen as far as 15 miles away. This kind of fire can never happen again at EMR, and we are going to ensure that it never does. We are going to be talking with our partners at the state DEP and the EPA who were both on site doing air monitoring about what can be done to make our community the top priority when it comes to the operation at EMR. We will not sit idly by while city, county, state and federal resources are utilized to put out this junkyard fire and our first responders are in harm’s way bringing it under control. As it stands right now, the city fire department is still on site dealing with smoke spots 20 hours later, but EPA and DEP air quality tests have come back with normal conditions and at noon today the shelter in place has been lifted for the adjacent neighborhoods.

 

This is by far the worst fire that has occurred on this site, and we want to make sure it is the last. This objective must be met by EMR, but there is another culprit to these fires that we need to get under control and that is the lithium-ion batteries that are now ubiquitous for every piece of consumer electronics sold today. These batteries burn hot and continue to cause fires throughout the nation and this is an issue that needs to be taken up by the EPA. We need to figure out how to properly dispose of these batteries before they enter the waste stream and become the instigating factor of fires like this at EMR and others throughout the state and nation.”

 

 

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