‘Too little, too late’: Residents and advocates urge Camden to permanently shut down scrap metal recycler

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Camden residents and advocates from nearby municipalities called on City Council during a meeting Thursday to permanently shut down EMR, a scrap metal recycler whose facilities in Camden have been the site of over a dozen fires since 2020.

Council members passed a resolution Thursday supporting a statement that city, county and state elected officials had made May 29 after the latest fire at EMR’s scrap metal shredding facility along the Delaware River in Camden’s Waterfront South neighborhood. The statement called on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, Camden County Health Department and other agencies with jurisdiction to shut down the facility.

Rosemari Hicks, a resident of Merchantville, New Jersey, who owns Nuanced Cafe on Market Street in Camden, said the city should go further.

“We need to take a step back and quit kicking the can down the road or asking somebody else to do what we should be doing ourselves,” she said. “Somebody needs to be strong enough to say no more.”

The city of Camden suspended EMR’s junkyard license for its shredder facility last week and issued the site a cease operations order. The city’s suspension will be reevaluated after 30 days, according to the notice sent to the company.

Kristin Schrum, a parent of young children who lives in the Waterfront South neighborhood, said her “level of fear” has gone down since EMR’s shredder ceased operating after the May 29 fire and the city suspended the facility’s license.

“If a fire truck goes by, now I do not have to look out the window to know that it’s not going to EMR,” she said.

Of the 10 people who spoke during the public comment section of Thursday’s meeting about EMR, four called on the city to shut down the company’s Camden facilities permanently and five others testified about the company’s negative impact on the neighborhood or urged the city to regulate the company more stringently.

“It’s not enough to shut down EMR for a short time,” said Roy Jones, a Camden resident and longtime environmental justice activist. He said the company endangers the health of nearby residents with diesel exhaust and other air pollution.

Dwane Williams, a resident of the Stockton neighborhood of East Camden, disagreed. He said with multiple industrial facilities in Waterfront South, “targeting EMR” is not the solution to environmental issues in the neighborhood.

“I definitely don’t believe the answer to this is shutting down EMR,” he said.

Waterfront South resident Aliyia Jones said City Council’s action Thursday was not cause for celebration, since residents have called for EMR to shut down after previous fires.

“Too little, too late,” she said.

EMR employs 535 people across five facilities and its corporate headquarters in Camden, 191 of whom are city residents, according to the company. Last week, EMR employees rallied outside of Camden City Hall to protest Mayor Victor Carstarphen’s calls for state and federal government agencies to shut down the company’s facility. Employees said that union jobs, particularly for people who’ve been incarcerated, would be lost.

In a letter to the mayor following his calls to close the scrap metal shredder, EMR USA CEO Joe Balzano said that “being a good neighbor” and operating safely is an “essential priority” for the company. Following the city’s cease-operations order last week, Balzano told WHYY News that he hoped to meet with city officials to resolve the issue.

“We value our place in the city of Camden and want to work for resolution, as opposed to in opposition of each other,” Balzano said.

City Councilmember Arthur Barclay, who represents the Waterfront South neighborhood and joined the calls for EMR’s facility to be shut down late last month, said after Thursday’s meeting that he would support permanent closure of EMR’s facility, but did not specify how City Council could impose that.

“We’re going to explore every option,” Barclay said. “At the end of the day, it’s going to be the mayor and the administration’s decision, but …  my one vote on council, I would love for them to permanently go.”