Today Technical Safety BC released its report regarding the October 17, 2017 ammonia leak at the Fernie Memorial Arena. It is the first report released by the agencies investigating the incident and communicates that the worker deaths were caused by aging equipment failure and poor decisions: findings point to the City’s failure to replace aging equipment. See the report here.

“As a City we value and are committed to the health and safety of our employees and community members. The ammonia leak, and the subsequent loss of our valued colleagues, is one of the most tragic incidents to happen to our community. We still feel their absence deeply” said City of Fernie Mayor Mary Giuliano. “Despite working with an approved certification for our system at the time of the incident, today’s report points to opportunities to further improve safety standards for arena refrigeration plants, not only for Fernie but for communities across British Columbia so no one else will need to experience a similar tragedy.”

Immediately following the incident, Technical Safety BC put in place additional regulations for testing and monitoring arena refrigeration plants, resulting in a number of rinks in B.C. discovering problems that might have become dangerous. The report outlines 18 recommendations to improve safety with refrigeration systems.

“The report indicates this is the first known example of an incident like this happening, where the ammonia leaked into a secondary coolant (the brine), leading to a pressure build up and failure of the pipe and then the rapid release of ammonia,” said Giuliano. “There is much the entire industry can learn from this to prevent such an accident in the future, and we will support this learning in whatever way we can.”

From left, Hornquist, Smith and Podloski. The three men died while trying to fix the Fernie Memorial Arena’s ice-making equipment in October 2017. (City of Fernie/Facebook)

Advised to replace chiller in 2010
According to the report, in 2010 a maintenance contractor advised the City of Fernie to replace the piece of equipment in question, which is called a “chiller.”

City officials initially scheduled funding for the replacement to take place in 2013, but then deferred it to 2014 for financial reasons before deleting the item from financial planning altogether.

In the spring of 2017 a small ammonia leak was detected in the chiller. However, the decision was made to put it back into operation on October 16 in time for the fall curling season. The next day, the catastrophic ammonia release killed the three men.

RCMP investigation
The incident is also the subject of a WorkSafeBC and RCMP investigation. Under legislation known as the Westray Bill, employers and companies can be charged with criminal negligence in serious injury or death cases.

In January, the City of Fernie filed a court application alleging that Mounties illegally obtained two log books detailing the maintenance and operations of the rink’s refrigeration system in the aftermath of the leak.

Fernie takes RCMP to court over records linked to fatal ammonia leak
The application was denied by B.C. Provincial Court Judge Lynal Doerksen, who pointed out that the city could actually be a “suspect” in the criminal probe.

City of Fernie allowed back into ice rink 3 months after deadly ammonia leak
In March of this year, five months after the ammonia leak, the City of Fernie announced it had awarded an $882,000 contract to Startec Refrigeration of Calgary to replace the arena’s ammonia refrigeration plant with a system that uses synthetic freon gas as the coolant. Freon is non-toxic and considered to have no safety issues when used in refrigeration systems at arenas.

The community looks forward to continue healing from this terrible accident and are pleased to be informed of the technical details leading up to the incident. Fortunately change is being implemented that will prevent future accidents elsewhere and we look forward our new Freon arena.

Technical Safety BC is an independent organization that serves as a provincial regulator of technical systems and equipment across the province including refrigeration plants used in arenas. In addition to issuing permits, licenses and certificates, it works with industry to reduce safety risks.