Community partners and stakeholders gathered at the Civic Centre in Mooretown Wednesday morning for an emergency simulation, involving members of Bluewater Association for Safety, Environment, and Sustainability (BASES) and Community Awareness & Emergency Response (CAER).
The simulation was co-hosted by the St. Clair Ethanol Plant and led by the St. Clair Township Fire Department, along with other response teams.
BASES Communications and Engagement Coordinator Tracy Krull said the exercise involved different phases associated with a simulated release of ethanol.
"The first would be that there's a call out to St. Clair Township Fire department, they would come, and then we have a scenario where they would run out of water and we would have to provide more water from another facility," Krull said.
St. Clair Township Fire Chief Richard Boyes said the takeaway from Wednesday's event was to work with community and industry partners, such as NOVA Chemicals, Shell, and Imperial Oil.
"We made this exercise more complicated than it probably would be in real life but we did it to test all of the different departments in working together," said Boyes.
2023 Emergency Response Simulation. May 17, 2023. (Photo by Natalia Vega)
Krull said Wednesday's emergency simulation is unlikely but important to plan for.
"There's not really a probable case of that actually happening but we really wanted to showcase the extreme situation and how all parties can show up and make sure that all community members, workers, and the environment are able to be safe," Krull said. "Emergency planning is not something that's always publicly spoken about, there's a lot of things that happen in the background, testing and emergency protocols, so we really wanted to open that up to the community and share the things that are happening behind the scenes."
The St. Clair Ethanol Plant, operated by Suncor, is Canada's largest ethanol facility. It opened its doors in June 2006 and expanded in 2011.
The St. Clair plant converts 40 million bushels of corn into 400 million litres of ethanol each year, as stated during a presentation. The ethanol is blended into Petro-Canada gasoline and, once starches are extracted from the corn, remaining elements are used to make distiller's corn oil, cattle feed, and biogenic CO2.
BASES General Manager Jason Vaillant. May 17, 2023. (Photo by Natalia Vega)
Due to the simulation, community members may have noticed increased traffic and emergency vehicles near the St. Clair Ethanol Plant and NOVA Moore facility for most of Wednesday morning.
The emergency response simulation comes one week after Emergency Preparedness Week, which was observed from May 7 until May 13.
Last year's large-scale emergency exercise was held at Imperial Oil.