‘Would have been devastating’: Camden scrapyard fire could have sent sewage into 500,000 basements, official says

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Last week’s four-alarm fire at a South Camden metal recycler could have caused millions of gallons of raw sewage to back up into basements of homes in the county, according to an official at the Camden County Municipal Utilities Authority.

The authority’s executive director, Scott Schreiber, told the Camden County Air Quality Committee this week that the fire had the potential of damaging the neighboring sewage treatment plant’s electrical substation and knocking out power to the preliminary treatment facility. WHYY obtained a video recording of the meeting.

“By the grace of God, the wind was blowing in a different direction,” Schreiber said. “Losing the ability to pump, which is not hyperbole — it’s not hyperbolic in any way — would have been devastating for Camden County. We would have taken what was a regional story and made national news by having 510,000 people having to deal with their own sewage.”

The Camden County Municipal Utilities Authority, which collects and treats sewage from Camden County, is located next to the southernmost part of EMR’s facilities along the South Camden waterfront.

The authority’s preliminary treatment facility, which contains raw sewage pumps, and main electrical substation, where energy from the grid enters the complex, are located roughly 200 feet from EMR’s fenceline, Schreiber told members of the air quality committee. He said if either of those facilities had been damaged beyond use by the fire or “two massive explosions,” the treatment system would not have been able to pump sewage away from homes.

“That would mean that on a dry weather day, 50 million gallons of sewage would either have to go into people’s basements or we would have to open up pump stations and harm our riverways, our waterways, the rivers and creeks,” Schreiber said.

The Feb. 21 fire at the scrapyard sent a plume of dark smoke into the air over Camden’s Waterfront South neighborhood, causing levels of unhealthy particulate pollution to spike. The nearest homes are just thousands of feet away from the facility, which has a history of fires and environmental violations. 

“My whole house was just filled with the smoke smell,” said Christina Allen, who lives on Ferry Avenue nearby with her mother and young son. “It was like I was in a daze. Every time I went in the house, I would get really fatigued.”

Schreiber acknowledged that while the wind direction last Friday may have spared the sewage treatment facilities, saying “it was terrible for the residents of Waterfront South.”

EMR says the fire was caused by a lithium-ion battery that was improperly sent to its facility and concealed within scrap metal. As of Tuesday, the state Fire Marshal was still investigating the cause.

“We are angered that this happened and deeply regret any inconvenience to our neighbors,” EMR said in a statement earlier this week, noting that the company provided meals and hotel rooms to evacuating residents.

The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the fire’s risk to the neighboring sewage treatment facility.