Associated Asphalt President Bill Kirk says he can guarantee that his company’s Salisbury operation is the cleanest asphalt terminal in the country.
Kirk made the statement Thursday as he led members of the Salisbury Planning Board and other city officials on a brisk morning tour of the liquid asphalt operation off Jake Alexander Boulevard.
Since it bought the terminal in 1997 from Chevron, Associated Asphalt has made drastic changes at the terminal — changes that nearby residents believe have led to asphalt odor problems that, at various times, permeate their homes.
Kirk reiterated several times Thursday — and tried to show visitors on the tour — that the company is trying hard to eliminate any pungent asphalt smells coming from its Salisbury operation.
“Our company does not want people to smell asphalt,” Kirk said. “We truly are trying to find the answer. ... We want people to be able to say, ‘They took care of their odor problem.’ ”
Kirk said he understood that one complaint is too many.
Citizens have registered more than 70 complaints about the asphalt smells to the city and N.C. Division of Air Quality in recent years. In response, the company says it has spent $160,000 in installing equipment to address escaping odors.
The city and nearby residents — mostly from Milford Hills — also have taken some steps.
Salisbury City Council has asked the Planning Board to consider downzoning Associated Asphalt’s 9-acre site to prevent the company from any future expansions. It also empowered risk management director Richard Kelly as a codes enforcement officer, allowing him to cite the company for nuisance violations if he determines that fugitive asphalt odors are present.
On Dec. 18, Kelly issued a citation to Associated Asphalt after receiving a complaint from the Milford Hills neighborhood.
“The odors were easily detectable,” Kelly said.
Kelly said he normally would cite both Associated Asphalt and the nearby APAC asphalt plant, but the APAC hot-mix plant was closed that particular day.
When he visited the Associated Asphalt site, Kelly said he noted the strong asphalt smell while workers were heating and unloading the liquid asphalt from three tanker cars.
Associated Asphalt has appealed the citation to the Zoning Board of Adjustment.
Kirk showed the visitors the Ecosorb system the company has installed on the large storage tanks and at the loading platforms (where liquid asphalt is pumped from the tanks into transport trucks). The next step will be to install similar equipment along the siding where rail tankers are unloaded.
Kirk pointed to the dome vents on top of the rail cars from which, it is believed, much of the asphalt odors are escaping.
Associated Asphalt buys liquid asphalt, which is shipped into the terminal by rail car. The liquid asphalt is heated and stored in insulated tanks and eventually distributed to customers’ trucks. The liquid asphalt is an ingredient in the asphalt used by paving contractors for driveways, parking lots, streets and highways.
In the three years since it purchased the Salisbury terminal, Associated Asphalt has removed 20 of the 21 tanks used by Chevron and replaced them with six giant liquid asphalt storage tanks with a capacity of 100,000 barrels.
In loading the liquid asphalt into transport trucks, the product is heated to about 300 degrees.
Kirk acknowledged that the company isn’t sure why it has caused asphalt odor problems that were never an issue when Chevron had the same operation on the site for some 30 years. Kirk noted that three new million-gallon storage tanks are closer to Jake Alexander Boulevard and that their vents are 40 feet in the air, meaning that odors may have had an easier time drifting toward Milford Hills.
March to October is the busy season for the terminal, so visitors Thursday were at the plant during a slow period.
Kirk says the company got the idea for the Ecosorb technology after visiting aBP oil refinery, where the system is successfully used for odor control.
Carbon filters installed in 1999 to help with odor control are still in use to some degree but they have been disappointing, Kirk said. Filters last from six weeks to six months, and the company has to order filters six to eight weeks in advance, without knowing how long they’ll last.
“We just felt that system wasn’t totally foolproof,” Kirk said.
He said trying to control odors at an asphalt terminal is a relatively new science. The company has three terminals, and this is the only one with odor-control equipment.
Kirk said most of the complaints in the past have come in either April or October. He said the company believes much of the problem is weather-related — that certain conditions must exist to carry the pungent asphalt smells off site and into nearby neighborhoods.
The company has ordered weather station equipment to help in determining when would be the best or worst times for transferring the liquid asphalt.
Kirk said the company accepts that odors are coming from its operation, but he believes that other factors and operations should not be ignored, such as the hot-mix asphalt plant behind Associated Asphalt and the 25,000 cars a day traveling on Jake Alexander Boulevard.
Kirk also noted that trucks leaving the terminal have no odor control equipment.
Kirk reminded visitors that a state air quality study in 1998 showed that air around the plant was as clean as any typical urban air. As for the effect of asphalt fumes on people’s health, Kirk said most of the studies have involved workers on asphalt paving crews, not on air escaping from vents on storage tanks.
The company has urged city and company officials and citizens to meet regularly to discuss the odor problem, possibly with a professional mediator. It contends that the odor problem is not a zoning issue and has promised to fight any downzoning of its property in court.
Some members of the Planning Board held a committee meeting later in the say to discuss the downzoning.
At that meeting, Milford Hills resident Steve Fisher told the planners not to be swayed by their visit to the asphalt terminal during the month of December.
Visiting the terminal in December is equivalent to visiting a night club on a noise complaint at 10 the next morning, Fisher said.
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