The Mount Pleasant Group of Cemeteries has replaced its old crematorium in the Moore Park area but it’s still a burning issue with local residents.

“We’ve been suffering for over 40 years from that human barbecue down the street,” protests neighbourhood organizer Margot Boyd of Friends of Toronto Public Cemeteries.

Her group and their city councillor, Kristyn Wong-Tam, say they were “taken aback” to learn that the upgraded facility had been in operation since April, performing nearly 300 cremations since then.

“They didn’t even tell us that they fired it up,” says Boyd. “Are they going to tell us if there’s a toxic spill?”

The battle was sparked two years ago when Mount Pleasant announced the upgrade to its 94-year-old mausoleum.

The first of two old “retorts” — as the furnaces are called — was removed last year after having been in operation since 1972. The second came out last spring. That’s when a “state-of-the-art facility” was installed, requiring an overhaul of the lower level of the stately mausoleum.

“We wanted to renovate the building to install the most advanced equipment available globally,” says Rick Cowan, Mount Pleasant’s assistant vice-president of marketing and communications. “We didn’t have to do that. We could have refurbished the existing equipment.”

But residents wanted the crematorium out, referring to a 2013 city bylaw requiring new crematoria to be sited at least 300 metres from any homes. The facility backs onto Moore Ave. and Inglewood Dr., only 16.5 metres away from nearby residences.

With the support of Wong-Tam, residents launched, and lost, an appeal.

“Residents felt it should have been treated like a new crematorium application,” says Wong-Tam. “The Mount Pleasant Group of Cemetery folks said no, all they were doing was upgrading equipment.

“But they were speaking from both sides of their mouths because, on the other hand, they were bragging about all this new crematorium equipment and the new facilities they had made.”

(Meanwhile, Wong-Tam and the residents’ group are involved in another legal action concerning Mount Pleasant’s governance, but neither side will discuss the issue as it is ongoing.)

Mount Pleasant says the new crematorium is not a threat, comparing its annual emissions to that of 294 residential fireplaces each burning 10 kilograms of wood during an evening.

Cowan produces emissions test results indicating that pollutants and possible carcinogens have been all but eliminated.

“It’s so close to 100 per cent (clean), it’s amazing,” he says. “Nobody else in North America has this equipment now.”

As he leads a tour of the mausoleum, Cowan begins with the chapel, lined with marble and distinguished by art deco fixtures and flourishes. Nothing much has changed here in nearly a century. The old catafalque, where the casket rests during services before being lowered below, still dominates.

The cremation process begins when hydraulic equipment conveys the casket from there to a “witnessing” room on the lower level.

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On one side, some armchairs and boxes of tissue. On the other, gleaming steel doors fronted by a platform from where the casket is sent into the retort. Behind the steel doors, 800C degrees of searing heat, which burns faster and more cleanly than the old retorts.

This room is important for members of the Hindu and Sikh faiths, Cowan says, explaining that not only is cremation essential to their funeral services but tradition demands that the oldest son (or other relative) light the flame. Here, that means pushing a green button mounted on the wall.

Demand for cremation in the GTA has been increasing, driven in part by changing demographics, new attitudes about religion and burials, and also for budgetary reasons. The percentage of funerals conducted via cremation is now at 62.1 per cent, up from 47.2 per cent in 1997.

Cowan heads down the basement hall to the back end of the retort. Air conditioners noisily hum overhead. Gleaming steel machines which serve to scrub out emissions fill the room.

At the end of an extended hours-long process, Cowan says, small amounts of toxic waste may result. At most, some four or five 45-gallon drums of toxic waste are produced annually, all safely disposed of by waste removal experts.

“The Ministry of the Environment has imposed the most stringent requirements on us; there’s no other crematorium that operates like this,” he says, listing all the required certificates of compliance approval.

Still, area residents have repeatedly tried to take their concerns to the province. They say former environment minister Jim Bradley ignored their requests for a meeting with Wong-Tam. They hope the new minister, their own MPP Glen Murray, “might be more open to protecting the interests of his constituents, and will agree to meet with our councillor.”

In an email, Murray’s office says: “The ministry will continue to monitor the performance of the new cremation equipment, to ensure the equipment is operating in a way that’s protective of the environment and surrounding community.”

Boyd just shakes her head, saying residents will never really know what’s blowing their way.

“I don’t know what burning mercury (from dental fillings) smells like — or vapourized nickel (casket handles), two examples of substances that are extremely toxic.

“It is my understanding that although we may associate a bad smell with a contaminant, it is also possible to have contamination without having any smell to it at all. The literature bears out that any level of mercury emission is toxic to human, animal and aquatic life.”