Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, September 15, 1993 TAG: 9309150097
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARY BISHOP STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"Certainly what we're doing will take our particulate out of the air," Don Huffman, lawyer and corporate secretary for Howard Brothers Inc. He said plans are not yet final, but construction will begin soon.
For 20 years, the company has recycled metal from the furnace waste at Roanoke Electric Steel. Howard Brothers uses magnets to pull metal from the slag and sells the metal back to the steel company. The rest of the slag is dumped into piles and sold as a stone substitute for road-building.
Neighbors long have complained that clouds of dust are formed when Howard Brothers takes hot furnace slag from the steel plant, hauls truckloads of it down an industrial roadway and dumps it on piles near Shenandoah and Luckett avenues. Residents say dust regularly falls on their homes and contributes to respiratory ailments.
The two companies, along with Norfolk Southern Corp., are the targets of a Roanoke special grand jury investigation into the community's dust troubles. Air-pollution inspectors never have pinpointed the source, or sources, of the dust. Huffman says his company is not the only source.
On Monday, Roanoke Electric Steel announced it will build a melt-shop addition to contain, water and cool the slag for 24 hours before Howard Brothers processes it.
Tuesday, Howard Brothers commended the steel company's plans. Huffman said that saturating the slag with water should eliminate any dust, but "just in case," he said, Howard Brothers also will build a two-level building to receive the slag from Roanoke Electric Steel's cooling bins.
"This additional precaution by Howard Brothers will ensure that fugitive emissions will not escape into the atmosphere," said a news release.
Howard Brothers will maintain its outdoor slag piles, Huffman said, but he said the changes in how the slag is handled near the steel company should remove the "most visible source" of dust from the community - the dust clouds over the slag piles. "They're no longer going to see that plume rising several times a day," he said.
Road construction is increasing right now, Huffman said, so Howard Brothers is selling its stockpile quickly.
by CNB