{"id":118499,"date":"2014-08-12T18:56:04","date_gmt":"2014-08-13T00:56:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/western-excelsior-promises-dust-reduction\/"},"modified":"2014-08-12T18:56:04","modified_gmt":"2014-08-13T00:56:04","slug":"western-excelsior-promises-dust-reduction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/western-excelsior-promises-dust-reduction\/","title":{"rendered":"Western Excelsior promises dust reduction"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Tallula
Tallula Vijil (left), Severn Black (center), and Marilyn Haun (right) work in Western Excelsior's wattle production area. Black is rolling up a wattle. Currently, this is the area the company believes is causing most of the pollution.<\/span>Courtesy of Kyle Hanson<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Western Excelsior management promised during a contentious meeting with residents on Aug. 6 to have new machinery in place in three weeks that will reduce town pollution.<\/p>\n

The group of Riverside residents, led by Chip Tuthill, voiced concerns and asked that the dust to be fully contained.<\/p>\n

Kyle Hanson, the Business Unit Manager for Western Excelsior, said the new auger system, set to be installed in a few weeks, will all but eliminate the problem.<\/p>\n

The company had been using big blowers to fill straw nets, and the machine from Germany will eliminate that system, Hanson said. He promised there would be a 90 percent reduction in straw waste.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m asking for a lot of trust,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The residents came with a demand letter in hand to present to Town Administrator Andrea Phillips asking for greater enforcement agreed to wait and see how the installation will make a significant difference. Many voiced the general feeling: We\u2019ve been waiting for years, what\u2019s a few more weeks?<\/p>\n

The group left with the expectation that they would meet again with Hanson after the new machine has been installed.<\/p>\n

In the demand letter, the group asked the town \u201ctake any and all actions to protect the health, property values, and well being\u201d of residents.<\/p>\n

Several residents including Bernadette Tuthill said they felt the over the years that the town hadn\u2019t done enough to enforce codes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need good accountability,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Celeste Aurorean echoed the complaints of many, saying tat she felt breathing the dust was a health concern. She also said many of her electronics have failed because of the dust.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is affecting my life on a day-to-day basis,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

mshinn@cortezjournal.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

machine expected<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":118500,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6371],"tags":[738,222,13],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-118499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mt-news","tag-environmental-issue","tag-environmental-pollution","tag-frontpage-lead"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118499","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=118499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118499\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118499"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=118499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}