Since February, one Mancos resident has turned into a maverick scientist, fashioning black felt to a clipboard to serve as a rudimentary air pollution monitoring station.<\/p>\n
\u201cWestern Excelsior is in plain view of my home,\u201d said Tom Nunn. \u201cThey should be shut down ASAP.\u201d<\/p>\n
A Riverside Drive resident since 2012, Nunn was one of a handful of Mancos citizens \u2013 the Concerned Residents of Riverside (CROR) \u2013 to speak out against the erosion and sediment control manufacturer at a public meeting on Monday, May 18. The citizens have complained for more than two years that the company is polluting the air and ground with \u201cfugitive particulates,\u201d or tiny pieces of sawdust.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve concluded that Western Excelsior will continue its delay tactics,\u201d Nunn told company and town officials on Monday. \u201cThey\u2019ve had more than ample time to resolve the issue.\u201d<\/p>\n
During a 20-minute address, Western Excelsior business unit manager Kyle Hanson explained that the company had identified problems in its manufacturing process that led to its particulate emissions, and the business, which employs about 100 people, had made efforts to try and remedy the situation.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur goal in this is to try to be transparent,\u201d said Hanson. \u201cWe\u2019re trying hard to make a difference and be respectful. We want a win-win.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hanson added that company employees had spent \u201chundreds and hundreds\u201d of man-hours studying particulate mitigation. He said the company conducts weekly inspections and plans to enclose exterior operations. Neither a timeline nor cost estimate was presented.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re trying to be better neighbors,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Former town trustee and CROR chair Chip Tuthill wasn\u2019t impressed. In a 15-minute rebuttal, Tuthill pointed to the Clean Air Act, which sets standards to protect the public health. He added numerous scientific studies have linked particle pollution exposure to premature death in people with heart or lung disease, nonfatal heart attacks and aggravated asthma, to name a few.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are concerned about the health and welfare of the residents,\u201d Tuthill said. \u201cWood dust is carcinogenic, and it gets deep into the lungs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tuthill said he had advised company officials of an industrial dust collection system that became available at auction from a New Mexico manufacturing facility. Tuthill said the used equipment would have offered tremendous savings over a recently acquired new system, which Hanson admitted is operating at 50 percent efficiency.<\/p>\n
Mayor Rachel Simbeck reminded Tuthill that the town couldn\u2019t control the company\u2019s manufacturing processes, and she asked what outcomes he expected.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want air monitoring equipment,\u201d Tuthill replied. \u201cWe want peace of mind.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hanson reiterated that he cared \u201cabout doing things the right way,\u201d but added that the company has complied with state and federal regulations.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not breaking the law,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re causing a nuisance.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re causing a lot of particulate emissions, and we\u2019re working to clean that up the best we can,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cTwo years is way too long to wait,\u201d Tuthill countered, again requesting monitoring sites.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf there are no health issues, then we could all breathe a huge sigh of relief,\u201d said Tuthill.<\/p>\n
No official action was taken after Monday\u2019s meeting. Simbeck advised that town and company officials should meet again to develop solid mitigation efforts.<\/p>\n
\u201cWestern Excelsior may never be able to make everyone completely happy, but we need to implement the next steps,\u201d said Simbeck<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Residents again voice opposition to air pollution<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6371],"tags":[944,338,83],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-112362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mt-news","tag-air-pollution","tag-business-enterprises","tag-mancos"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112362\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112362"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=112362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}