Before the Stelco boom: Do Hamiltonians deserve advance notice before loud, dusty demolitions?

If you live in Hamilton, you probably heard, or maybe even felt, the demolition of Stelco's last blast furnace.

Residents across the lower city, the Mountain and as far away as Greensville reported hearing the massive boom of the 200-foot-high furnace collapsing - with help from targeted explosives used to cut out stubborn structural supports - Wednesday.

But very few people heard anything about it ahead of time.

Hamilton police tweeted about the impending very big and very loud" blast about an hour beforehand, while Stelco told its workers and emailed a small community liaison committee the night before.

Kara Guatto called those efforts way too late" to notify local residents - especially those who still remember an infamous demolition-gone-wrong in 2019 that blanketed a lower city neighbourhood in industrial dust without warning.

You catch everyone by surprise and then they see that big cloud of particulate in the air? You have to do better than that," said the east end resident. There are residential neighbourhoods, families living all around the steel mills."

Mark Osborne reported feeling the shock wave" in his Greensville home and wondered whether there had been a dangerous explosion. We should not have to search social media to find out."

The Ward 3 council office was caught by surprise, too - even though it had asked Stelco for advance demolition notice many times" in the past, said incumbent ward council candidate Nrinder Nann.

That doesn't cut it," said Nann, who has also asked to meet with Slate Asset Management. The developer bought Stelco's 800-acre bayfront property earlier this year, making it the owner of the blast furnace when it crashed to the ground.

Stelco has not responded to Spectator questions about the blast furnace demolition this week, but sent a one-line email to the resident committee saying the demolition was a success.

Its earlier email to members also said the contractor had a dust mitigation strategy for the demolition - and as of the end of Wednesday, no one had complained to the province about off-site impacts," said Gary Wheeler, spokesperson for the Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks.

Slate declined by email to answer questions about the blast furnace or whether future demolitions would trigger public notice. Dozens of former steelmaking buildings - and potentially, several tall smokestacks - will need to come down to allow Slate's planned redevelopment of the 800-acre bayfront property.

The city building department reviewed the demolition plan and issued a permit, but was not alerted to the timing of the blast, said a spokesperson. At the moment, that's business as usual.

Nann put forward a motion last year asking city staff to review permit processes and legislation related to major demolitions to see if in future advance public notification could be made mandatory.

That review, which was supposed to include public health officials, was put on hold because of the COVID-19 pandemic, said city spokesperson Michelle Shantz. A report on the options is now expected to come before a new council next year.

Matthew Van Dongen is a transportation and environment reporter at The Spectator. mvandongen@thespec.com