Boulder County (Colo.) Public Health officials are in talks with representatives at Cemex’s Lyons plant after local residents raised concerns about dust clouds, reported the Longmont Times-Call. Members of the citizens group Save Our St. Vrain Valley filed a complaint in July and provided video evidence of the clouds to local health officials in August.
Bill Hayes with Boulder County Public Health said that during a September meeting with the Lyons plant manager and Cemex’s environmental specialist, the two were “surprised to see the amount of dust captured in [the] videos and took it seriously.”
“At that time, they agreed that they would do a recon of each dust event and determine what the source was, and then implement preventative measures to keep that from happening again,” Hayes told the Longmont Times-Call.
However, Hayes noted that the dust clouds do not appear to violate any existing regulations. Normally, trained county observers would examine clouds of dust in person to determine if the concentration is high enough to warrant a violation, but since the county was made aware of the dust through video and the dust events seemed to stay within Cemex’s property, no regulations were violated.
Cemex spokesman Walker Robinson says the company has ways to reduce dust and welcomes hearing from the local community so it can address any concerns.
