CURRENT NEIGHBORS NOT WORRYING MUCH

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, April 3, 1993                   TAG: 9304030122
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LON WAGNER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: MONTVALE                                LENGTH: Medium
CURRENT NEIGHBORS NOT WORRYING MUCH
Above the loud, scrunching sound of cars going through the metal shredder, Zaida Welch, 77, says she won't necessarily be glad to see Shredded Products Corp. leave Bedford County.
In fact, the woman who lives 150 yards or so from Shredded Products' car-dicing machine has no complaints about the operation.
"They're company to me," she said. "If I was here and couldn't see anything, I'd be lonesome."
In October 1989 a football-field-sized pile of automobile "fluff" - nonmetal car parts such as hoses, steering wheels and seats - caught fire at Shredded Products plant. Nearby residents who were subjected to acrid smoke of the burning fluff complained of headaches, breathing problems and sore throats.
The state Health Department studied the 1989 fire's fumes and found them to be nontoxic. But health officials acknowledged the particles in the fumes could cause temporary breathing problems.
Fred Westfield, 66, was literally smoked out of his bedroom - he moved to a less smoky basement room - during the 1989 fire. Westfield lives at the end of the field that held the fluff that smoldered for 38 days.
Westfield will be glad to see Shredded Products move to Franklin County, but he hasn't had too many problems with the company since the fire went out.
"Right now, to be frank about it, the way they operate I can't see any trouble," he said this week. "I can live with it the way it is."
Still, Westfield questions the long-term effects of Shredded Products. He wonders if, after the company is packed up and gone, residents will discover lingering environmental problems.
"What I was most concerned about was when they were burning over there was there anything in it that would be hazardous to your health or get in the water," he said.
Welch isn't too worried about that, either. She gets her drinking water from a well on her property. She thinks her water comes from an aquifer that runs underneath the car shredder.
"I don't think it would kill nobody," Welch said. "It didn't kill me, and I'm right here."

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB