Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 29, 1992 TAG: 9201290261
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARY BISHOP STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: FINCASTLE LENGTH: Medium
WEBLITE TO MEET AIR REGULATIONS
The state of Virginia has been accusing Weblite Corp. of air pollution for 20 years, but it was not until a marathon court session Tuesday that the company finally agreed to start cleaning up its act.Attorneys for Weblite and for the state emerged from a private three-hour huddle Tuesday night and said Weblite will build a new smokestack, control its dust, identify air pollutants and hand over information that the state has demanded for years.
Officials of Weblite, makers of a lightweight aggregate used to make concrete block, had no public comment.
"I see nothing but they got off scot-free," said Josephine Noojin, who has watched dust and air pollution come from the Botetourt County plant for more than 20 years and has filed complaints with the state for 13 years.
She and her husband finally moved a mile and a half away from Weblite in the rural village of Webster near Blue Ridge. They said their calls to state regulators had no effect.
Weblite's attorneys admitted in Botetourt Circuit Court that the company has operated for years without the proper state air permit. Weblite had a permit years ago, but it became invalid when the company built a new sintering machine that more than doubled the amount of clay, slate and coal it burns.
Virginia Senior Assistant Attorney General Roger Chaffee said Weblite was like a doctor practicing medicine with only a state driver's license, not a medical one.
"An outmoded and poorly maintained facility" was how he described the 40-year-old plant. "Essentially, this company is operating outside the law."
It was the first major air pollution case taken to court in the state's regulatory history. Robert Saunders, regional field manager for the state's air pollution agency, said no company had ever refused so steadfastly to submit pollution data.
In recent weeks, the state Water Control Board has chimed in with allegations that Weblite is illegally discharging industrial waste water into Glade Creek. The company has denied this in letters on file at the agency's Roanoke office.
Though air pollution charges stretch back to 1972, Chaffee said the state still was not making criminal charges against Weblite or asking the judge to shut the company. Chaffee said criminal sanctions are "not generally considered to be a satisfactory remedy."
He was asking instead for a "reasonable compromise" to get Weblite to obey the law.
Chaffee acknowledged that 20 years is a long time for the state to accuse a company of serious pollution before taking forceful action. "We admit it took too long," he said. Even Weblite's attorney noted that it has taken the state six years just to take Tuesday's court action.
"I'm not pleased," said Noojin. "I think they should have been fined." The very day of the court hearing, she said, she and her husband, Gene, watched dark blue smoke pour from the Weblite plant down on the homes near it.
Weblite's neighbors long have complained of a sulfur-like odor; a low haze along the roads; and cinders and dust that covers their properties, eats the paint off cars and sifts into windows and doors.
The state Department of Air Pollution Control has told Weblite that it suspects the plant's stack emits high levels of sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, particulate matter, volatile organic compounds, nitrogen oxides, fluorides, hydrogen fluoride and sulfuric-acid mist.
But for years, Weblite's board chairman, Charles D. Fox III of Roanoke, has said the state has singled out Weblite for unfair and unsupported accusations. He said there was no proof that his company was causing the air pollution that plagued Weblite's neighbors.
Just to submit test data and apply for a new permit would cost Weblite at least $650,000, Weblite attorney Erica Dolgin argued before Botetourt Circuit Judge George E. Honts III. "We cannot afford these unnecessary expenditures," she said.
After 2 1/2 hours of testimony, the parties met behind closed doors. Afterward, Weblite said it would submit a plan for control of its "fugitive" dust, which comes from sources other than its stack. It said it would submit plans for construction of a new stack. And it agreed not to exceed 103,000 tons a year of product material from its sintering machine.
The company also promised to turn over test data on its emissions and to identify pollutants. It will set up an escrow fund of an undetermined amount to cover the cost of any future environmental reclamation.
If Weblite and the state disagree over any of this, they will come back to court.
Noojin still was unimpressed when she heard all this.
"They can promise all kinds of things," she said, "but I have my doubts they'll get anything done. I've been watching them 21 years."