Interactive map: The GTA's major propane facilities
Ontario's Technical Standards and Safety Authority released a revised list of the province's propane facilities Friday. Here are the largest ones in the Greater Toronto Area, licenced to hold over 5,000 U.S. gallons of propane, the same licence category that Sunrise Propane came under. Circles indicate a 1.6 kilometre radius around the facility, the distance Toronto mayor David Miller has urged they be kept from residential areas.
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After touring the devastation left by the Sunrise Propane blast, Premier Dalton McGuinty wondered if such facilities should be located so close to residential areas.
"It just raises a question about the location of something that could be so dangerous so proximate to a residential neighbourhood," McGuinty told reporters yesterday, the first time he had spoken about the incident since returning to Canada from trip to China.
"It raises some important questions and we've got a responsibility to answer those, including taking a look at TSSA and asking ourselves whether the standards are adequate," McGuinty said.
Before they came to power, the Liberals had been critical of the Technical Standards and Safety Authority, but once elected didn't act on the criticism. McGuinty said that when they looked at the agency it appeared to be "managing fairly well." But the Liberals will now give it a serious look.
"(Consumer Minister Harinder Takhar) is looking at TSSA to find out what we need to do as a government in order to best protect the public's safety," McGuinty said.
The premier also said he told acting deputy mayor Shelley Carroll that the province was interested in helping families affected by the blast.
The propane blast spread asbestos across a wide area east of the Sunrise Propane site.
Inspectors wielding leaf blowers to stir up as much dust as possible have swept through a dozen houses near the Murray Rd. explosion to check for asbestos levels. The good news is that the tests have shown no unusual levels.
"So far all of the tests have come back well within, and in some cases well below the usual natural levels of asbestos in the atmosphere for interiors of homes, so we're quite encouraged," Carroll told a city hall briefing session.
People have been volunteering to have their houses tested, with those homes situated various distances from the explosion. Ultimately, the city hopes to sample 50 homes in the area.
Outdoor air has been consistently monitored since the explosion and found to be safe, she said.
By late yesterday, city crews had cleaned up somewhere between one-third and one-half of the affected area, Carroll said.
"We have completely cleaned 128 properties as well as a two-acre park site, and also the daycare centre and community centre beside it.
"We've completed Plewes Rd., Spalding Rd. and Katherine Rd. from Murray (Rd.) over to Garratt (Blvd.)," Carroll said.
"Today cleanup was also completed on Spalding and Katherine all the way over to Ancaster," she said yesterday.
Carroll said she expects the pace of the cleanup to pick up because there are more workers, and less debris to clear as they move away from the blast site. She wouldn't speculate on what the costs would be.
Carroll said building officials have designated only one house near the blast site to be structurally unsound, which means it can't be reoccupied.
