WAUPACA COUNTY POST

May 15, 2003

By Robert Cloud, Post Editor

 

Waupaca Foundry Plans to Upgrade Plant 2

 

            ThyssenKrupp Waupaca plans to upgrade its operations at the foundry’s Plant 2 and appeared at a DNR public hearing on Tuesday for a permit.

            Also present were several area residents opposed to the permit.

            Phil Nolan, who, along with Michael Orr, has filed a suit against the Department of Natural Resources regarding prior permits issued to the foundry, said ThyssenKrupp’s most recent request “jeopardizes the safety of the environment, workplace and the public health.”

            Nolan said the review engineer with the DNR’s Bureau of Air Management “employ methods offensive to the public common sense,” and he accused the DNR of “hardened bias.”

            Noting that the state attorney general had fined the foundry for exceeding its emission limits in April 2002, Nolan argued that the new permit application “adds kiss to injury by assuring the obnoxious particulates will be reduced a whopping 2 percent from the levels beyond tolerance in 2002.”

            Orr, who lives directly north of the foundry, accused the DNR of ignoring the concerns of area residents.  He said he has been complaining about the foundry’s emissions level for years without getting any results.

            His wife, Ramona Orr, disagreed with the DNR’s preliminary finding that the foundry’s emission levels have no significant health impacts on the community.

            “My husband, the minute that foundry starts emitting that stuff, gets sicker than a dog,” she said.  “I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m not too happy with it.”

            ThyssenKrupp Waupaca is seeking a permit for a project that will increase production capacity at Plant 2.  Work would include new electronic controls, a new core machine, improvements to the sand-handling ventilation and modifications to the existing sand-handling equipment.

            While the proposed improvements will allow the foundry to increase Plant 2’s peak output from 25 tons per hour to 35 tons per hour, Bryant Esch, an environmental engineer for ThyssenKrupp, said the foundry’s overall capacity remains limited to the 130 tons per hour melting capacity of the cupola.

            “These improvements are expected to improve plant efficiency and result in a potential peak hourly capacity increase for both of the Disa molding lines,” Esch said at the DNR hearing.  “Even with these improvements, actual annual production will be unaffected, as overall plant production will continue to be limited by the melting capacity of the facility’s cupola.”

            At issue are the foundry’s emissions, among which are benzene and particulates. Most of the foundry’s particulates come from the sand and dust in the production process. Most of this is captured in fabric filter bags.  To begin the project, however, the foundry must have a variance for the benzene emissions from Plant 2.

            Raj Vakharia, the DNR’s review engineer for the project, has estimated that the foundry’s maximum benzene emissions are approximately 248,000 pounds per year.  He said this estimate is based on a worst-case scenario, with the foundry operating at full capacity, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

            He estimated that the risk of inhaling benzene from the Waupaca foundry was 12 in 1 million.

            “While evaluating the proposed variance, it is important to realize that emission estimates for Wisconsin suggest that less than 1 percent of the benzene emissions are generated by industrial sources, while the remainder of emissions are generated by more common air pollution sources such as gasoline stations, cars, trucks, lawn mowers and other fuel-burning equipment,” according to Steven Klafka, an environmental engineer with Wingra Engineering, the firm that prepared the permit application for the foundry.

            Klafka said that the average benzene concentration at a Plant 2 stack is 11 parts per million. He estimated that this concentration is diluted 1,400 times by the time it reaches the foundry property line.

            “Considering the changes in wind direction and speed over a five-year period, downwind annual average concentrations will be diluted at least 26,000 times,” Klafka said.  “This results in a maximum concentration of 0.4 parts per billion.”

            Klafka compared the levels of benzene in the area around the foundry to the typical rural background concentration of 0.5 parts per billion.

            At Tuesday’s hearing, Marilyn Thwaits asked the DNR to consider the cumulative impact of multiple sources of benzene in the area.  While noting that the foundry is only one source of benzene emissions in the area, she said the DNR’s goal should be to lower overall emissions by lowering the emissions of that one source.