What might be Hamilton’s weirdest industrial fallout caused a sweet mess in the North End last week.

A malfunctioning dust collector at the new Sucro Can Canada refinery caused a rain of sugar — yes, sugar — to coat house windows and car windshields of residents on Ferguson Avenue North, Burlington Street East and Wood Street East.

The unprecedented fallout caused a brief panic among residents unsure of the chemical makeup of the sticky white stuff — especially given the proximity of the industrial harbour’s oil-processing and steelmaking operations.

Environment Hamilton urged residents to report the fallout to the province.

Having to scrape the equivalent of icing off your car is “irritating,” said an apologetic Sucro Can partner Don Hill — but he promised the sucrose snow posed “absolutely no danger” to anyone’s health or paint job.

“What escaped the plant is literally just the dusty version of what you have in your bag of sugar in the pantry,” he said in a phone interview.

The provincial Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks looked into neighbourhood complaints and confirmed the material was “not damaging or toxic.”

The sugar fallout was also a first for Hamilton, according to ministry spokesperson Jennifer Hall.

It’s unclear exactly how much microscopic sugar blew through the neighbourhood, but residents reported seeing the residue on their vehicle over several days.

“It feels like the sugar layer on top of a crème brûlée,” said Traci McCaskie, who repeatedly found a crust on her car windshield last week.

She said it took “a few runs” of windshield washing fluid to clear the sticky coating.

“It made the sound your wipers would make on frost. Which was confusing, because I knew it wasn’t frost,” she said.

Hill said the new Ferguson Avenue North facility — the first new sugar refinery built in Canada in decades — suffered a malfunctioning dust collection unit last week.

“It’s not a normal occurrence and we’re certainly not happy about it,” Hill said. “It’s an odd thing.”

Specifically, a torn filter bag was to blame, prompting the replacement of all 172 bags in the dust collection baghouse, according to the ministry.

The incident will also result in the addition of automated sensors and a new inspection program to prevent future sweet escapes.

The ministry is satisfied with those “corrective measures” and will not pursue a formal investigation, Hall said.

Ward Coun. Jason Farr said he was “relieved” to hear the latest episode of industrial fallout along the harbour was not a health or environmental threat.

It’s not always such a sweet deal.

In the past, North End residents have ducked clouds of microscopic grain from ship-loading on windy days.

Further east, neighbourhoods have suffered “black soot” fallout from steelmakers and worried about demolition dust from industrial teardowns.

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Beach strip residents have complained about salt blowing from huge port storage piles into rusting residential eavestroughs.

Farr said the refinery has offered to clean houses and vehicles of affected residents.

So if your car is sticky-sweet, Farr said call his office at 905-546-4677 to be put in contact with company officials.