Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, September 27, 1994 TAG: 9409270092
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER NOTE: below
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Residents of the Signal Hill neighborhood - who initiated the grand jury probe with a petition asking that Roanoke Electric Steel and Howard Brothers be declared public nuisances - have complained for years about large dust clouds that rain metallic ash on their homes.
Despite the grand jury investigation, which prompted the steel company and the recycling center to make improvements to their operations, some residents say the dust has far from cleared.
"It's let up some, but we still have it," Helen Workman of Norway Avenue said Monday of the clouds that drift into her neighborhood and coat houses, lawns and cars with grime.
Some residents are angry that the grand jury has disbanded after filing a sealed report in Roanoke Circuit Court, stating that neither Roanoke Electric Steel nor Howard Brothers was determined to be a public nuisance.
"Hell, I know it's a nuisance," said Oscar Jenkins, who lives on Signal Hill Avenue and was one of 24 petitioners who asked for the investigation. "I've been here for 35 years ... It's just been a headache for us."
But Commonwealth's Attorney Donald Caldwell, who assisted the grand jury, said there was no proof that Roanoke Electric Steel and Howard Brothers were the only sources of the problem.
"While the grand jury felt there was some responsibility on the part" of the two industries, Caldwell said, "it didn't rise to the level of a public nuisance."
Caldwell noted that "there are a multitude of businesses that generate dust" in the industrialized railroad corridor off Shenandoah Avenue, where Roanoke Electric Steel and Howard Brothers are located.
Howard Brothers has a contract to recycle furnace waste from nearby Roanoke Electric Steel, hauling it in truckloads and dumping it in huge piles. Metals extracted from the waste are returned to Roanoke Electric Steel, and the rest of the material is sold as fill for road construction and other projects.
State officials and residents have said that when the hot furnace waste, or slag, is dumped into piles, dust and steam billow into the air and drift into adjoining neighborhoods.
Since the grand jury was convened last September, both industries have built large shell buildings to trap the dust, and Roanoke Electric Steel has created an operation that cools the furnace waste with water for 24 hours before it is taken to Howard Brothers.
"It's a very good system," said Bob Saunders, environmental field manager for the state Department of Environmental Quality.
"We advised the grand jury that when the material was delivered to Howard Brothers, it was in such a wet state it was no problem when it was dumped," said Saunders, who has testified several times before the grand jury.
State officials have said that the dust is not toxic, and that no state regulations have been violated by its emission.
Don Huffman, a Roanoke lawyer who represented Howard Brothers, said the company spent about $50,000 to build a shell building over the waste piles to contain the dust.
Roanoke Electric Steel reportedly paid more to construct its operation, but company spokesman John Lambert would not say what the amount was.
Lambert did say, however, that the grand jury's finding "vindicates our position of a company that has operated in a responsible manner at this site for nearly 40 years."
While some Signal Hill residents said the dust remains a problem, others say there has been a noticeable improvement since the dust-control operations were installed.
"It has helped, I would say, 75 percent," said Shirley Hudgins. "I can't see where it's near as bad now as it used to be."
Some residents had hoped that the grand jury investigation would finally produce results in what has been a nearly decade-long fight over the dust clouds.
Taking advantage of a rarely used state law, the residents filed a petition in September 1993 that forced court officials in impanel a special grand jury. If the grand jury found the industries to be public nuisances, it could have fined them as much as $5,000 and ordered that "such nuisance be forthwith removed and abated."
by CNB