Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, September 9, 1993 TAG: 9309090137
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CATHRYN McCUE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The monitor trapped about 20 percent more total suspended particles than is allowed by state regulations, said Jerry Ford, an environmental specialist with the department's air division in Roanoke.
It's not clear how much, if any, of the dust is coming from Howard Bros., and the company has not violated any state or federal regulations," Ford said.
The monitor was set up last year in direct response to complaints from citizens in the Signal Hill neighborhood that dust clouds from Howard Bros. were drifting over and settling on their lawns, homes and cars. At the citizens' request, a grand jury was appointed this week to investigate the pollution as a public nuisance.
Howard Bros. hauls slag - furnace ash that is mostly hydrated lime - from Roanoke Electric Steel and removes usable metals. The remaining material is used, much like crushed stone or gravel, for road construction and other projects.
State officials and residents say that when the hot, wet slag is dumped in piles, dust and steam billows in the air, sometimes well over 300 feet.
A spokesman for Howard Bros. said the company is not the sole source of the trapped dust in the monitor, which is within 200 yards of the slag pile.
"That air pollution could come from a number of different sources, including Howard Bros.," said Don Huffman, lawyer and corporate secretary for the company. "And we get blamed for it all."
He said the company has taken samples of dust from mailboxes and other places in the area and found coal dust, clay particles and dirt, as well as lime particles.
However, state officials have been working with Howard Bros. to get the company to control the dust plumes.
Ford said he is trying to "fingerprint" the dust residue in the filters and in the community to see if it is coming from Howard Bros. He has taken samples from the slag pile and sent them to a state laboratory for analysis. He also plans to set up simple monitors which he likened to buckets with filters throughout the Signal Hill neighborhood.
A match in chemical composition between the slag sample and filter residue will help establish a link to Howard Bros., Ford said.
Howard Bros. is not required to have an air-pollution permit because of its size and because it is not discharging pollution. Rather, the dust particles escape during the industrial process.
Under state regulations, the company must control fugitive dust according to "reasonable means." But there are no established control methods for this kind of operation, said Don Shepherd, regional director for the air division, who checked around other states when the problem arose.
The company also must meet opacity standards, which measure pollution according to visual standards. Ford said the plumes of dust and steam rarely last long enough to violate that standard.
If the dust-particle monitor shows that dust has exceeded the limit again this year, the agency will install another type of monitor to check for violations of federal health standards. That could trigger a broad range of actions, said Bob Saunders, head of enforcement with the agency's Roanoke office.
Hydrated lime is a caustic agent, but is not listed as a toxic, Saunders said. Trace amounts of mercury, beryllium, lead and other heavy metals have been found in the dust, he said.
At the air division's recommendation, Howard Bros. has been spraying water on the slag at several points along the route from Roanoke Electric Steel to the dumping piles.
But the chunks of slag are extremely hot and fine, like talcum powder. Rather than saturating the slag, it reacts violently with water, quickly turning into steam.
Even after several drenchings, Ford said, the slag still spews dust clouds when it is dumped.
The agency had suggested that Howard Bros. erect a building for the dumps to contain the dust, but that was too expensive, Ford said.
by CNB