Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 22, 1991 TAG: 9103220104
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B3 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The modified permit allows the plant, which opened five years ago, to increase production from 8.22 tons to 10 tons an hour. Waferboard is a sheeted building material similar to plywood, made by gluing small chips of wood together in a heated press.
Some Dungannon-area residents had objected to the company's plans to switch to a new type of glue and to increase production. They feared their health would suffer from air pollution.
Linda Miano, who has fought for tighter controls on the plant, said Thursday she has not decided whether her community group will challenge the permit in court.
Miano had wanted continuous monitoring of fumes coming from the plant's stacks and said such monitors were available from a Pennsylvania company. Mike Overstreet, head of the Department of Air Pollution Control's regional office in Abingdon, said that although the Pennsylvania firm has said it probably could make the monitors, the devices are not being manufactured.
The modified permit will seek, instead, to control emissions through periodic sampling of the plant's stacks and by monitoring the amount of resins being used in the gluing process.
The permit also requires the plant to increase the height of its stacks from 75 to 112 feet to dilute emissions, to put carbon filters on resin tanks to catch formaldehyde and isocyanate fumes, and to develop plans to contain accidental chemical spills.
Miano had intended to ask the Air Pollution Control Board to reopen its public comment period on the permit at last Friday's meeting and was angered when the board shifted its regular "citizens hour" on the agenda to follow discussion of the Louisiana-Pacific permit. A hearing was held on the proposed permit changes in mid-1989, and public comment has been closed since then.
Beth Lester, an assistant to air board Executive Director Wallace Davis, said the board had to change its agenda then because its policy is not to listen to citizens about issues that are being considered by the board on the same day. Miano should have known of the policy, she said.
"Is that democracy in Virginia or what?" Miano said. "That's really dirty."
Miano, who suffers from chemical sensitivity, said she now is scared. She said she asked the air board if the state would be willing to buy her home so she could move.
The plant, which employes 110 salaried and hourly workers and was closed in September, will reopen when market conditions improve, said manager Jim Summers.
The quarter-inch board the plant makes is used in construction of such items as highway trailers and children's toy boxes but is too light for home construction.
"We're going to do everything we can possibly do to see [the plant's] safe," Summers said.
On the opposite side from Miano at Friday's air board meeting was a group of loggers and plant employees; Del. Ford Quillen, D-Gate City; and a member of the Scott County Board of Supervisors, Miano said.
by CNB