Camden City Council to decide whether to allow scrapyard EMR to resume operations after repeated fires

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Camden City Council will decide Tuesday whether to allow a scrap metal shredding facility in the city’s Waterfront South neighborhood that’s been the site of multiple fires to start back up.

The city ordered EMR to cease operations at the facility in early June after a two-alarm fire at the facility, the latest of over a dozen fires at the company’s five sites in Camden since 2020. EMR then sued the city, calling the suspension of its junkyard license “groundless.”

Camden residents and activists from nearby towns urged City Council to shut the facility down permanently during a meeting last month. One nearby mother of two young children said her “level of fear” living near the shredder had decreased since it paused.

EMR’s fires have driven nearby residents to evacuate their homes as well as cause some to experience acute health symptoms and lingering psychological effects. During the latest fire on May 29, Camden County found hazardous levels of fine particulate pollution just south of homes in Waterfront South.

The proposed settlement between the city and EMR would allow the company to restart its shredder for training purposes as early as July 8, then fully resume normal operations as early as July 18. The agreement will go before City Council during a special meeting Tuesday for approval.

Lower pile height limit, 24/7 fire watch and hand-held heat cameras

The proposed settlement would require EMR to:

• Implement a 24/7 permanent fire watch at the facility
• Pay for a city fire department official to be on site at all times during the first two phases of reopening
• Immediately notify the Camden Fire Department of any fires
• Limit the height of the scrap metal pile heading into the shredder to 20 feet and create 20-foot fire breaks between piles
• Segregate incoming material by type
• Start shredding during an earlier shift each day to limit the accumulation of material
• Improve battery screening practices, including by using handheld thermal imaging cameras
• Submit standard operating procedures to the city for fire suppression system and for general fire response
• Train employees on the procedures outlined in the settlement four times a year
• Ensure that employees trained to operate and maintain the fire suppression system are available 24/7
• Install a backup power supply for the fire suppression system within six months
• Allow city officials access to the site and give them employee contacts

The pile height limit in the proposed settlement is less than half of the limit set by last year’s memorandum of understanding and identical to the height restriction in a bill that passed the New Jersey legislature last week and is awaiting Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s signature.

The agreement outlines a phased process of returning the shredder facility to normal operations, which requires the company to implement some changes and obtain city approval of plans for others in order to move forward.

Proposed settlement reflects EMR contractor’s recommendations

Many of the requirements in the proposed settlement agreement reflect recommendations from a contractor hired by EMR to review the company’s fire safety procedures in the wake of the May 29 fire.

During that fire, EMR’s fire suppression system — completed about a month prior — helped contain the fire but partially malfunctioned, according to Camden Fire Chief Jesse Flax.

A copy of the June 9 report prepared by R. Thomas Long, Jr., an engineer with the consulting firm Exponent, shows he recommended EMR “complete installation and perform site acceptance testing” of the fire suppression system, and employ a 24/7 fire watch to patrol the facility until that is complete. Long also recommended EMR develop a standard operating procedure for the fire suppression system, train employees to use it on automatic and manual modes, and develop a standard operating procedure for fire response that includes only removing debris from a burning pile when water is being applied to it. After a four-alarm fire in 2025, firefighters wrote in a post-incident report that EMR employees had worsened the fire by moving burning material from the scrap metal pile onto a conveyor belt leading into the shredder.

Possible settlement comes after Camden Mayor said ‘enough is enough’

The proposed settlement strikes a more conciliatory tone than city leaders adopted just over a month ago after the May 29 fire at EMR’s shredder. That day, Camden Mayor Victor Carstarphen, City Council President Angel Fuentes and City Council Vice President Arthur Barclay called for county, state and federal agencies to shut down the facility. 

“Enough is enough,” Carstarphen said at the time. “The city has worked with EMR to improve facilities, but today, this morning, having another two-alarm fire that occurred is truly unacceptable.”

“We entered into a MOU agreement with EMR … to improve the quality of life of [the] Waterfront South community in the city of Camden,” he added. “And after all of this, after numerous fires, numerous attempts to help EMR prevent future fires, here we are again. … This will no longer be tolerated by me, my colleagues, elected officials here and more importantly our residents.”

A lawsuit filed by the New Jersey Office of the Attorney General and Department of Environmental Protection early this year claims the fires resulted from unsafe conditions at EMR’s facilities that the company failed to take “appropriate steps” to fix.