A Saint John community group is welcoming the recent task force report into September’s fire at the American Iron and Metal scrapyard.

Raven Blue is the coordinator of Liveable Saint John. He said having this information being made public is long overdue.

“When I look at the findings, many of these things are information that we could easily have already known had the provincial government been doing their job and regulating this industry,” Blue said in an interview.

Blue said it is unfortunate that it took multiple disasters for the government to pay attention to concerns residents had been raising for years.

For example, Blue said the organization presented the government with data in 2018 that showed high levels of air and water contamination.

“Everything that happened at AIM Recycling could have been predicted,” he said. “I think people understand now that if it were to continue to operate, it would be a problem coming in the next election.”

While the province has not said whether it will return AIM’s operating licence Blue said he thinks this report might be the final straw for the company.

You can read our coverage of the task force report by clicking here.