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April 10, 2009

LETTERS: April 11, 2009

Fox has ‘hearsay information’ about asphalt company



This letter is in response to Doris Fox’s letter printed March 22, 2009, in The Evening News. I’m a resident of Jefferson Court Mobile Home Park and would like to address some statements made by Ms. Fox.

She states that the “newspaper has printed stories about the asphalt company. They sometimes appeared to sound as if the quarry was terrible.”

The asphalt company and the quarry are two different entities. No complaints have been made against the quarry. Other than an occasional blast, we are further away than the subdivisions bordering that side of the quarry and who probably do receive a small amount of dust. The quarry has been there since 1929.

She also states, “not all residents in the park feel that way” [against the quarry]. The petition is not anti-quarry. Only one person who was asked to sign the petition chose not to because “It won’t do any good.” All the others that were canvassed were very anxious to sign the petition.

Ms. Fox also states that she “has never seen dust in the air or on the streets.” The fallout from the plant is in the form of a minute grit that accumulates on top of surfaces, cars and homes. Naturally, she wouldn’t see this in the street, since it is small and floating through the air. Several of us do wear masks while walking and cutting grass, especially if the plant is fired up and making asphalt.

The berm was erected by MAC Construction and Excavating. Not the quarry. It does help with the noise. Trees were planted, but the “smokestack” towers above the berm and thus is no help with the emissions.

MAC also informed us that it has purchased a chemical to help with the odor. If there was no problem, the company would not have had to do this. IDEM does check periodically to see if the company is within limit standards of output.

This is not saying much, as Indiana is ranked 49th out of 50 states on Forbes Magazine’s list of America’s greenest states, so I would imagine their standards are very easy to qualify for clean air as well as the EPA.

A meeting will be held at 6 p.m. Tuesday at Walnut Ridge Baptist Church. The meeting will give out correct information, not hearsay information.

— Carole Hodge, Jeffersonville

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