Riverside residents are raising concerns about garbage accumulating at a derelict foundry in south Burnaby.
The abandoned Globe Foundry, located on Willard Street, caught fire in early January and was largely destroyed. While fire officials deemed the blaze suspicious and the RCMP investigated, they could not determine the cause.
Meanwhile, the site has been left in ruins, people have been dumping more garbage on the property, and the owners are nowhere to be found.
Riverside resident Shawn Wade is concerned the property was able to degenerate that far.
“It became a kind of magnet for garbage and people who may have been setting fire to buildings, so it seemed to attract people who like to cause trouble, dump garbage and set fires,” Wade said. “We don’t want it to become a theme park for arsonists.”
The foundry has been operating in the area since the 1940s and was run by the Ewasiuk family. There have been numerous issues associated with the site, including WorkSafeBC violations, outstanding debts and two deaths in 2013, currently under investigation by the B.C. Coroners’ Service.
The two people who died were living in a trailer on the property, possibly to keep an eye on the place, and one of them was part owner of the foundry, along with two of her siblings.
According to Wade, the foundry stop running two or three years ago.
“There was some looting going on there, all the metal people,” Wade said. “Once those people died, all the people who were scrounging for metal … went in there.”
Wade says the problems worsened once there was no one living on the site.
“We noticed sleeping bags, various other things kicking around there, so people were sleeping or dumping god knows what there, and of course, we had the fire,” he said.
The NOW talked to two other residents in the neighbourhood with concerns about the site, but Wade was the only one willing to go on record.
According to B.C. Assessment, the property owner is still listed as Globe Foundry Ltd., which was started by the Ewasiuk family in the 1940s. The NOW tried to track down members of the family with no luck.
“Our thing is we live here. This shouldn’t happen. If you have too much garbage, it can attract rats,” Wade said. “The reality is a lot of stuff has been dumped on that site for a number of years. Remediating that site will be difficult and very expensive,” he added. “Whoever takes on that site will have a big bill on their hands.”
The property is considered contaminated by the Environment Ministry, and if the owners declare bankruptcy, it could become an orphan site. It’s not clear who is responsible for cleaning up the site, because it’s unclear who the owner is. The Environment Ministry seemed to think the city was the owner and would be responsible for cleaning up the mess, but Dan Layng, the city’s chief licensing inspector, said that wasn’t the case.
“We don’t own it, the province is incorrect,” Layng told the NOW. According to Layng, the company was in the process of being dissolved, but no one knows who will take ownership and responsibility for the cleanup.
“That’s the million-dollar question. The owner is always responsible for the property, but when we don’t have a clear owner, it puts us in an impossible situation,” Layng said.
The city also has a bylaw to deal with unsightly premises.
“But when we do those cleanups, we charge back to the property owner. When we don’t have a clear property owner, it’s kind of tenuous, and we’re stuck,” he said.
