Owner of Main Street furniture store says he's 'going in circles' with province over cleanup after fire
Province believes debris may contain asbestos, but Surplus Direct owner says tests show otherwise
The owner of a furniture store that burned down in Winnipeg's Point Douglas area nearly five months ago says a dispute with the province has prevented him from cleaning up the rubble.
A Feb. 11 fire in the Surplus Direct store on Main Street also engulfed Top Pro Roofing to the north and Lord Selkirk Furniture to the south.
All three buildings were considered a total loss.
The City of Winnipeg has issued demolition permits for the Top Pro Roofing and Lord Selkirk Furniture buildings.
But the owner of Surplus Direct, Robert McDonald, says demolition work for his building has been held up because the province says there is evidence of significant asbestos-containing material in the rubble — something McDonald disputes.
"It's a case of just going in circles," said McDonald, who bought the building, constructed in the 1950s, from Kern Hill Furniture in 2007.
McDonald says his insurance company hired Imrie Demolition in March to do the demolition.
Imrie then hired a third-party consultant, HLC Consulting, to take 20 samples of building material and debris from the site to determine whether there was asbestos.
Nineteen samples came back with no asbestos. One sample had trace amounts of asbestos — but below the point at which waste is technically considered "asbestos-containing material" under the province's guidelines, according to a copy of HLC Consulting's report on its findings, which McDonald provided to CBC News.
The samples consisted of brick mortar, debris, wall panelling, insulation and roofing materials, according to the report.
However, email exchanges between McDonald and provincial staff says samples taken by the province's Workplace Safety and Health department in June contained significant amounts of asbestos.
McDonald says he wasn't aware of the province's testing until recently, and doesn't trust those results. The province didn't send any photos or provide any details as to what materials it was testing, he said.
"If we came up with asbestos on our testing, absolutely, then we'd all be on the same page," he said.
"Until they can prove the testing … I really, truly find it hard to believe."
Expensive cleanup
Under provincial regulations, asbestos must be removed before a demolition can begin. If that's not possible, measures need to be taken to prevent the asbestos from becoming airborne during the demolition.
McDonald said that means cleaning up the property would require what's called a "wet" demolition — meaning all materials on site would have to be watered down and bagged.
That would drive demolition costs to about $400,000 — as opposed to $150,000 for a conventional demolition, McDonald said.
"As a businessman, you know, times aren't easy right now," he said. "To take a $200,000 hit is a lot."
The cost of the demolition will come out of the insurance payout, which is a set amount, McDonald says.
Asbestos concerns due to building's age: province
A spokesperson for the province says many building materials used before 1990 contain asbestos, so Manitoba laws assume there is asbestos in old buildings unless proven otherwise.
Due to the age of the buildings involved in the February fire, the province was concerned that asbestos might be present in the rubble pile and issued stop-work orders to each of the three business owners on Feb. 24, the spokesperson said.
One of the stop-work orders was lifted on April 17. The other two remain in effect, pending an appropriate asbestos removal plan, the province said.
Workplace Safety and Health is working with the owners and the city "to ensure the rubble is removed safely and does not put workers or others at risk," the spokesperson said via email.
Lord Selkirk Furniture declined to comment to CBC News. Top Pro Roofing had not responded to an interview request Thursday by the time of publication.
Leo Nicolas, a consultant hired through the insurance company to collect and analyze samples from the Surplus Direct property, says he thinks it would have been better if all parties worked together to audit the site.
"We never kind of got a clear response as to what … [Workplace Safety and Health] actually sampled, where it was sampled on the site," he said.
"It would have been nice if everybody was involved with that process, so then it would be no questions as to … [whether] everything was done properly."
McDonald agrees, and says the only way to reach an agreement is for all parties to work together to retest the site.
Otherwise, he's prepared to take the issue to court.
In the meantime, he says the rubble will continue to be an eyesore for the area.
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With files from Caroline Barghout