Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, September 9, 1993 TAG: 9309090125
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By MARY BISHOP and LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
First, the neighbors called the state's air pollution people.
That was more than three years ago, and the gritty dust kept falling.
So they called news reporters. There were a few stories on TV and in the newspaper, but residents of the Signal Hill section of Northwest Roanoke say the dust just kept falling.
So they appealed to state legislators . . . and the Environmental Protection Agency . . . and U.S. Sen. John Warner . . . and members of City Council . . . and Roanoke Mayor David Bowers . . . and City Manager Bob Herbert . . .
Still, the people say the dust keeps on falling.
This week, they did about the only thing left in their citizens' arsenal, short of filing a lawsuit they say they can't bankroll on retirement incomes.
They got Roanoke to form a special grand jury and set out to convince the city that giant piles of industrial slag rain dust on their homes, lawns and cars.
It will take weeks for that special grand jury, a highly unusual legal creature around here, to decide if the dust problem deserves further legal action.
In the meantime, the residents are getting a lesson in judicial procedure.
They sat in a Roanoke Circuit Court hallway half the day Tuesday and waited for jurors to hear them. A crowd of about 30 dwindled to seven after Judge Diane Strickland told them the most the jury could do is recommend whether further legal action be taken.
Lucille McBride, who lives on Norway Avenue Northwest, said burglary and drug cases were being heard by the same jurors who ultimately became the special grand jury. She was miffed when an alleged cocaine dealer was granted a court-appointed attorney.
"They're going to furnish him an attorney, by cracky," she said. Her bunch of elderly folks will have to hire their own, if they ever sue.
Neighbors have been photographing and videotaping dust clouds that form above slag ash heaps on a ridge about two blocks away. They say a rough ash drops on them, with a consistency like old-fashioned abrasive cleaners, and it's been coming down on them a long time.
"It's been every bit of eight years," said Peggy Helton, of Norway Avenue.
Roanoke Electric Steel, a big plant a few blocks away, says that for 20 years it's had a contract with Howard Brothers Inc. to remove slag, or furnace ash, from its plant. Metal recycled from the slag is resold to the steel company and the rest becomes fill material in road-building, said John Lambert, Roanoke Electric Steel's spokesman.
Neighbors say that it's when Howard Brothers dumps truckloads of hot slag on the piles near them that a cloud of flinty ash takes shape and drifts over their homes.
"I have one lilac bush that is gray" from it, said Shirley Hudgins. "It covers everything."
Residents also accused Norfolk Southern Corp. in the public-nuisance allegations. The ash piles are on railroad property.
People knew it was an industrial area before they built there years ago, Don Huffman, Howard Brothers' lawyer and corporate secretary, said Wednesday. If there has been any dust, he said, "As far as we know, it's always been within tolerable limits."
As for Roanoke Electric Steel, Lambert said:
"We don't know about the source of this dust that they're complaining about. From time to time we've asked Howard Brothers to review their procedures to see if there is dust from the slag and if so, how it can be reduced." He said Roanoke Electric Steel is trying to find other ways of handling the slag, and would be glad to talk with neighbors.
Howard Brothers is doing its best, Huffman said. "We think we're being a good neighbor and doing everything we can." For instance, he said they've reduced and are watering the truckloads of slag to alleviate any problems.
Homeowners talk, though, of car paint eroded by the dust and of occasional explosions when the slag is dropped on the piles. Helen Workman, of Norway Avenue, said slag rolled down on a junk car at the adjacent Star City Auto Parts last winter and ignited a gas tank. She said the blast knocked pictures off her walls.
"Just last week," said David Mullins, owner of Star City Auto Parts, "I delivered a windshield to a customer and he rejected it." Mullins said hot ash had burned onto the window.
He worries about his workers breathing the dust. "Sometimes," he said, "it'll make tears come to your eyes."
Hudgins doesn't understand why government hasn't stopped this.
"They're willing to protect those little bitty fish you can't even see," she said. "I think we're the endangered species."
Late last year, Herbert wrote Helen Workman that the material falling on her area was "iron dust" - about half hydrated lime, 17 percent iron oxide and 25 percent silica. "I am advised," he said, "that this is not a hazardous material."
Hudgins recently wrote the U.S. attorney general. "Janet Reno is a tough cookie." But she hasn't heard from Reno yet.
For residents, the impaneling of a special grand jury was a symbolic victory. But it remains unclear just what its investigation will accomplish.
It may simply authorize the residents to file a lawsuit - something they could have done without an investigation.
Under a seldom-used state law, the most severe punishment the companies would face is a $5,000 fine if a public nuisance is found to exist.
Commonwealth's Attorney Donald Caldwell said he is willing to assist the grand jury, but did not take an active role in its creation.
He called the special grand jury an "archaic legal remedy that is seldom used because it just doesn't have the power and expertise under the law to do a sufficient investigation."
But, he added, "I'm not trying to discourage their use."
Caldwell said his office talked with representatives of the neighborhood and the companies to try to find a solution - short of going to court. "Everybody in this has been cooperating and is interested in addressing the problem."
At least, the grand jury investigation gives residents a day in court - free.
Andy Burford moved from Norway Avenue to Daleville this spring because, he said, the dust was terrible.
Even if the grand jury probe doesn't help his neighborhood immediately, he said it might be a wake-up call to the companies.
He wondered if his former neighbors could afford a lawyer willing to challenge a large local company like Roanoke Electric Steel.
At the courthouse Tuesday, he said: "If we could get the wind to blow it over to South Roanoke, then the heads would roll quick."
Staff writers Cathryn McCue and Sandra Brown Kelly contributed information for this story.
Memo: ***CORRECTION***