Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, July 10, 1993 TAG: 9307100104
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: RICK LINDQUIST STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RADFORD LENGTH: Medium
A report, prepared by Laura C. Green, senior scientist and president of Cambridge (Mass.) Environmental Inc., said the discharges "were unlikely to have caused any adverse health effects in the exposed population."
The April 24 fallout, resulting from a "baghouse" equipment malfunction, caused a substantial release of dusty material. The dust settled on New Town carports and sidewalks, and left behind a gritty film on vehicle finishes that did not easily wash away, as past fallout had. The incident prompted protests to city, state and federal officials.
The analysis was among three lab reports released this week by New River Castings' parent company, Intermet.
An elemental analysis of baghouse dust from the foundry by Olver Inc. of Blacksburg said discharges were about 77 percent iron and 5 percent manganese. Chromium, nickel, cadmium, lead, aluminum, calcium, copper, magnesium, potassium, silicone and sodium also were detected in much smaller amounts.
A third report, by ETS Inc. of Roanoke, said the median dust particle size was 82 microns, which is about half the size of the average grain of sand.
The foundry baghouses, which work something like vacuum cleaners, collect dust - mostly iron particles and sand - from finishing operations at the plant. Company officials have said premature deterioration of collection bags led to the release. New bags were installed.
A Virginia Department of Environmental Quality microscopic analysis of a fallout sample showed it contained large amounts of iron oxide, plus particles of sand and magnetic iron and steel. The sample was collected from a plastic cap obtained from Ferguson Enterprises, a plumbing supply house that had complained after the April 24 incident about damage to shower and bath units it had stored outside.
"I'd never seen anything like that," Robert Saunders of the Roanoke Air Office said this week of the cap sample. He theorized the material was "iron dust in the process of oxidizing" or rusting.
Saunders said the material was easily removed by scraping, and caused "no real damage."
City Council will get all four reports at its meeting on Monday.
Meanwhile, a few New Town residents remain unhappy and claim that periodic emissions from the plant took a turn for the worse last month.
Della Carroll, who lives on Roberts Street, said a particularly bad fallout incident occurred June 14, and additional discharges came after that. "Every night at about 8 o'clock, the black [was] just rolling," she said of the foundry's stacks.
Her next-door neighbor, Nancy Hannifan, also reported worse-than-usual discharges that same week.
With the foundry's vacation and maintenance shutdown early this month, Carroll said the situation has improved. "It's been a pretty quiet few days," she said. The plant will remain closed until July 19.
Carroll also said she was "not at all satisfied" with initial efforts to restore her car's finish. After another buffing in late June, she said, the car "looks so-so."
Harvey's Chevrolet body shop manager Randy Griffin rattled off a long list of happy customers from New Town, but said that some cars, including Carroll's, have been a problem.
Another resident, Tony Jiminez, agreed with his neighbors that emissions worsened in June. "We get a big whiff every once in a while," he said, and a release on June 19 "stunk real bad."
Not all are unhappy. Randy Muerr of Ferguson Enterprises said he was pleased with the settlement he reached with the foundry over his damaged inventory. "The issue has been resolved," he said. "I feel pretty good about the foundry right now."
Larry Amy of the city engineer's office said hot, humid weather may play a role in making even routine emissions seem worse, but he turned aside some residents' suggestions that recent discharges were deliberate.
Amy also said the pollution could be coming from some place other than the foundry. The neighborhood also is next to Norfolk Southern railroad tracks, and coal trains pass by regularly.
Intermet spokeswoman Jan Toennisson said that, as part of an expansion program, New River Castings would have six new baghouses operating by this fall, in addition to the three already at work.
"Air quality in the immediate vicinity of the plant should be enhanced" with all nine baghouses on line, she said.
Toennisson stressed that the plant has complied with all state and federal air-quality standards.
by CNB