Plant pollution hits Seavey Loop.

Byline: Diane Dietz The Register-Guard

Residents of the pastoral Seavey Loop Road - known to most as the route to Mount Pisgah - were surprised to learn a neighboring business was pumping enough xylene in the air to qualify as a major pollution source.

"I don't like the idea of breathing poison. I never have. I'm not joking," said former Congressman Jim Weaver, who lives a few hundred yards from the xylene source, the Johnson Crushers International plant.

Now - in response to Weaver and other neighbors - the Lane Regional Air Protection Agency has scheduled an Oct. 4 hearing on the plant's request to continue emitting xylene and other pollutants under the federal Clean Air Act.

Johnson Crushers was late in applying for a permit. In fact, LRAPA was unaware that the plant - which manufactures equipment for the aggregate industry - was putting out tons of pollutants, including hazardous air pollutants.

The business slipped over the threshold in the past three or so years as it experienced an explosion in sales and a six-fold increase in employees, from 50 to 350 people, plant officials said. The plant's use of xylene, a paint thinner, increased with production.

Unaware that xylene is a hazardous air pollutant, Johnson Crushers was buying the chemical by the drum, when the company only needed a few gallons for paint thinning purposes, company officials said. Since then, the company has reduced the chemical's use dramatically.

Studies have shown xylene can cause neurological symptoms at high exposure and fetal death in animals.

Johnson Crushers International is one of about a dozen subsidiaries of the Tennessee-based Astec Industries Inc., a multinational firm with profits of $168 million on sales of $711 million last year.

The Environmental Protection Agency, during a routine cross check of national chemical use reports submitted by companies and a database of companies holding permits to discharge air pollution, discovered Johnson Crushers had not applied for the necessary "Title V" permit.

Those permits are reserved for companies that put out the largest volume of air pollutants. Lane County is home to 19 Title V companies, and Johnson Crushers will increase that number by one.

Despite combing the phone book for companies likely to create high levels of air pollution and canvasing Lane County, LRAPA didn't know about Johnson Crushers' output until the EPA called.

"There wasn't any new construction going on," said Max Hueftle, an LRAPA environmental engineer. "They'd been operating for quite a while without us knowing, which is unusual. It's kind of hard to explain."

The database cross-check occasionally turns up major pollution sources that state and local air agencies miss, said EPA air program state liaison Paul Koprowski, who's based in Portland.

"We're not going to go in and hammer them for that," he said. "An agency like that feels bad enough with us finding it. They have their pride too, you know, and are trying to do their best."

Since the discovery, LRAPA has been busy preparing the required Title V permit and, also, calculating the fine the company will pay for neglecting to get a permit and the annual permit fees it didn't pay. The agency will finalize its calculation within the next two weeks, an LRAPA spokesman said.

"LRAPA has been very cooperative with us in terms of responding to what we found and they seem to be right on top of it," Koprowski said.

The plant, meanwhile, is near a stretch of road where farmers grow and sell produce.

Weaver said it's especially close to his house. "The wind comes right across from that place to my house," he said.

HAVE YOUR SAY

The Lane Regional Air Protection Agency will take public testimony on Johnson Crushers International's proposed air discharge permit.

When and where: 5:30 p.m. Oct. 4 at LRAPA, 1010 Main St., Springfield.

Information: For a copy of the draft permit, call Betty Pace at 736-1056, extension 219.

Send written comment: LRAPA Permit Coordinator, 1010 Main St., Springfield, OR, 97477; or e-mail comments to [e-mail]. The deadline is 5 p.m. Oct. 5.