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Asphalt odors persist in the Milford Hills neighborhood of Salisbury, and residents say the smells have returned lately with a vengeance.
“They’re right back where they started,” said Elizabeth Ruth, who lives on Wiltshire Road.
Richard Kelly, code enforcement officer for the city of Salisbury, said he received eight complaints about asphalt odors last Saturday, leading to his issue of the most recent $100 citation against Associated Asphalt, which operates a liquid asphalt terminal off Jake Alexander Boulevard.
Since August, the city has issued 11 nuisance citations against the company in relation to odors coming from the operation. Four or five of those citations have come in the past month, Kelly estimated.
Kelly described the smell last Saturday as “pungent,” reaching the “strong” or “very strong” classification he uses when deciding whether to fine the company.
Meanwhile, the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources has yet to report the results of air-monitoring tests it conducted near the terminal for three months earlier this year.
State environmental representatives expected to hold a public meeting before Christmas, but “that didn’t happen,” Kelly said.
Most of the parties involved — Milford Hills residents, city officials and company representatives — expect the state analysis to show that Associated Asphalt’s emissions do not present a health risk. The company continues to operate under a valid state air quality permit.
But the parties all acknowledge that offensive odors continue.
“It is a nuisance we have to deal with on a regular basis,” Ruth said. “That’s the problem.”
Ruth and others say the odor problems were not as bad this past summer when the weather was warmer and while the state’s three 10-by-12-foot monitoring stations were in place near the terminal.
But once the stations were dismantled in September and the weather cooled, the odors were more prevalent, residents said.
Ruth expressed an overall frustration that the residents of Milford Hills have had to deal with the odors since November 1997, and that nothing seems to have been accomplished.
“I think we’ll have to involve some lawyers,” she said. “I can’t really say. We’re not happy with the situation.”
Robin Fisher, a resident of West Colonial Drive, said the previous week and weekend were “horrible,” as far as the asphalt odors were concerned.
“You can be in the house — not even outside — and smell it,” Fisher said.
Fisher strongly believes that the weather has a lot to do with when the odors are most prevalent. The cooler nights and mornings make the smell worse, she said, because the fumes are held closer to the earth.
“The bottom line is, it never gets any better, except when the weather is warm,” Fisher added.
The company has installed a weather station in hopes of finding a correlation between certain weather conditions and when it receives complaints of the odor being at its worst.
Fisher echoed the frustration of Ruth and said the odor problem won’t be solved until the city begins levying a heavier fine — $5,000 per citation, for example — against Associated Asphalt. Every time the company faces complaints, she added, it always seems to give another excuse.
Glenn Ketner Jr., a Salisbury attorney working with Associated Asphalt, said the company is still trying to find ways to stop the odors from leaving the terminal site. He called it “ a perplexing problem” and described Associated Asphalt as somewhat of a national pioneer in trying to employ cutting-edge solutions.
“My folks are committed to finding a way to solve it,” Ketner said.
In a Nov. 26 letter to the city, Associated Asphalt President and Chief Executive Officer John W. Kirk said a more recent stronger odor from the plant may have resulted from liquid asphalt coming from U.S. crude sources, not Venezuelan crude, as had been the case for most of the year.
The tank car shipments from the domestic source began Nov. 8 and 9.
Kirk said the company had noticed “a different and somewhat stronger odor from this source.”
“I think this is substantiated by the fact that since Nov. 10 we have received four citations,” Kirk wrote. “Up until the 10th, we had received only three citations (one warning and two citations) in the last five months.
“This record indicates that our odor controls have helped tremendously.”
Kirk stressed that the odor control had not been changed in any way to lead to the more recent complaints and citations.
When the company received a second citation on Nov. 13, it began adding an odor-masking agent directly to the liquid material when it arrived at the terminal. The odor-masking effort was done in addition to the other odor controls the company has installed.
In addition, Associated Asphalt developed a protocol and performed separate emissions testing for the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
Kirk said the company’s testing program for hydrogen sulfide and total reduced sulfur emissions has been completed, and he offered to share the results with city officials.
“Because of the emphasis these past months on these testing programs (including the state’s),” Kirk said, “we have not been able to enact any new odor controls other than the ones that have been in place.
“Now we can move forward and continue to search out ways to additionally control the emission of any odors that offend the citizens of Salisbury.”
But Ruth says residents in Milford Hills “have been more than kind and more than patient.”
“Enough is enough,” she added.
As for the city citations, Associated Asphalt successfully challenged and overturned in court four citations issued to the company prior to August. Kelly said the company won on the grounds that the odors did not result from a manufacturing process, as then described in city ordinances.
The city followed up that court ruling by rewriting the nuisance ordinance and adding a section related to odors that come from storage and holding facilities.
Ketner said the company has paid the subsequent citations with protest letters attached. The protests reserve the right to contest the fines at a later date, he said.
Ketner believes the nuisance ordinance, as it relates to odors, is subject to challenge on some points.
For one, he said, the process in determining when odors are offensive is too subjective and does not include adequate standards.
The city noise ordinance has measurable standards for determining when someone is in violation, Ketner said as an example.
Kelly, the city’s risk manager, acknowledged that complaints were down about the odors until the recent flurry, starting in November and continuing through December. He said the company seemed sincere in trying to find a solution. “We think they’re working in that direction, but we just don’t think they’ve found the correct procedure,” Kelly said.
Contact Mark Wineka at 704-797-4263, or mwineka@salisburypost.com
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