AQMD Town Hall Meeting in Duarte Responds to Resident Concerns About Vulcan’s Proposed Expanded Mining Project
Officials from the South Coast Air Quality Management District told a packed Duarte Town Hall meeting that it will submit additional comments on Vulcan Materials Company’s Draft Environmental Impact Report.
The AQMD will recommend a need for greater justification of baseline emissions and offsite emissions in the final EIR, due to go before the Azusa City Council for consideration of approval on April 19.
Vulcan is requesting a revised Conditional Use Permit that will allow the company to expand its mining operations from a currently approved and partially mined site on the east side of its 270-acre property to a pristine 80-acre mountain ridge abutting hundreds of Duarte homes and schools.
The City of Duarte had taken issue with several of AQMD’s initial comments submitted to Azusa on the Vulcan DEIR, specifically: The baseline emissions cited in the DEIR were overestimated, and established using inappropriate time; Project emissions such truck traffic due to increased mining were underestimated; and Meteorological data used in the model were incorrect. At the request of Duarte, AQMD remodeled the project using two years of wind data previously collected in Duarte and conservative modeling parameters. Based on modeling assumptions of flat terrain, Duarte wind data, and modified emission source locations, AQMD found modeled air contaminant concentrations higher in Duarte. While particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide concentrations were found to be below acceptable thresholds, the “health risk assessment indicates possibility of higher impacts.”
AQMD Executive Officer Barry Wallerstein said his agency will also work with Duarte to study locations to install one or more monitoring stations to measure particulate emissions from the mining site.
“One of the options that AQMD is considering is a real-time monitor that will tell us in essence by the minute what the particulate levels are. Because of the concerns about silica dust we’re probably going to want to take some additional samples that allow us to do a chemical analysis of the type of particulate. We are already scouting out potential sites near the fence line of the facility so that we are right in the residential neighborhood as opposed to a distance away at the school as in the previous model,” he said.
Congresswoman Judy Chu and State Assemblyman Anthony Portantino lent the weight of their offices and the weight of their support to the Duarte community, as co-hosts of the Town Hall meeting.
In her opening remarks, Congresswoman Chu said she was “disappointed that the Environmental Impact Report still leaves much to be desired.
“Specifically mitigation measures described in the EIR are still insufficient and not delineated enough in precise language. These mitigation measures need to be specific and there must be legal mechanisms in place to ensure their implementation. I also feel that the indirect impacts of the project have not been addressed in the EIR, particularly in traffic, air and noise pollution,” said Chu.
The AQMD’s presence in Duarte with AQMD Governing Board Vice Chair, Dennis Yates, Governing Board member Dr. Joseph Lyou, AQMD Executive Officer Barry Wallerstein, and other staff members “underscores the serious nature of what is going on,” said Assemblyman Portantino.
“What makes this situation unique is that it is a large project in one community that borders and affects a neighbor and that’s why it is important to take care and take time and make sure that the residents of each community have the confidence that their environmental conditions are going to be protected; that their homes, their quality of life will be protected and addressed. The nature of an Environmental Impact Report is to take in those public concerns and address them. If there are concerns that cannot be addressed, the proper thing to do is to not move forward with that project. We are watching from a Sacramento perspective and interested in what the AQMD has to say,” said Portantino.
More than 100 people attended the meeting and many took the microphone to share their concerns, among them Jean Hart, a teacher and resident of Duarte who told the assembled officials that two years ago she was diagnosed with silica dust in her lungs.
“At first I could not understand how this could have happened. In my family there is no instance of lung problems. I bought my house in 1993 at the corner of Encanto and Fish Canyon Rd. and the wind blows in my garden some days very hard. There isn’t any doubt in my mind that the silica dust in my lungs comes from the mining operation. It might be a good idea to ask the mining company to go mine where they will not harm older people, younger people and people in general because when I bought my house, I was not so old, but it harmed me,” she said.
In her closing remarks, Congresswoman Chu told the crowd:
“I learned a lot from your comments and questions tonight. I will never forget the woman who testified about having silica particles in her lungs. That’s the real everyday effect of this and I am taking this to heart and I will stand by you residents,” said Congresswoman Chu.
Assemblyman Portantino praised the community for their constructive comments. “I think the AQMD in its own right raised legitimate concerns and I hope it was listening to the legitimate concerns raised by the citizens who were here tonight. I know that there were representatives of Vulcan here tonight and I hope that they were listening to the legitimate concerns of the AQMD and of the concerned residents,” he said.
Videotaped coverage of the Town Hall can be viewed on Duarte Public Access (DCTV), Charter Cable Channel 3 in Duarte, and on DCTV on the Web, www.dctvduarte.com.
For more information about the issues surrounding Vulcan’s mining expansion plan, visit www.saveourcanyon.org and contact Duarte Deputy City Manager, Karen Herrera at (626) 357-7931.
