Pacific Abrasives and Supply Inc. is looking at various options to control its dust pollution after concerns raised by nearby residents.
Operations manager for Pacific Abrasives Steve Zibin explained management at the company is currently discussing the installation of a facility to take care of the dust.
The company is located at the corner of Carson and Cooper Roads.
“We’re not quite sure at this point but we do have a few options and I don’t want to comment on it until we know what kind of systems that we want,” he said. “There are different things that people do and that we’ve done before. We have a more of a difficult time with it because our material trucks so much and it sticks to the tires of the trucks.”
Zibin noted the dust occurs during damp conditions and doesn’t go away too much during the summer when a sprinkler system is used.
“Right now, what we have is the city works department comes out on a regular basis when its sweeper is running and it sweeps the roads as much as it can,” he added. “When the fall weather comes, it’s hard for them to do because everything is frozen. That’s the other problem we’re dealing with – what do we do in the winter.?There are a number of things that we are looking at and we are aware of the situation and are looking at some options.”
Mayor Brian Taylor noted the city does its best at maintaining clean roads.
“In our air quality study, road dust was one of the major concerns that we have and we have a number of things that we do seasonally to reduce the effects of dust,” he said. “We wash the boulevards and after the winter is over we get the sand that we put down on the highways picked up and washed off as quickly as possible to reduce that. It has been a problem for us in terms of air quality.”
Zibin added there has been no timeline set yet and the company is looking at alternate options.
“We’re just researching now and we’re going to be looking at what some other people are doing,” he concluded. “We don’t know when anything will be set up but we are aware of the problem.”