Powerful wind gusts of up to 100 kilometres per hour could be felt in the Lethbridge area on Monday and the wind blew sand and dirt from the Lafarge plant on 9 Avenue N. into yards of neighbouring houses.
Michael Hauk told Global News he was upset the sand was landing onto his windows and blowing into his air ducts.
“There’s many things that this could be causing… personal damage… windows in my house are getting sandblasted,” he said. “My house, my vehicles – everything is getting sandblasted.”
Lafarge general manager Mike Schmidtle said because the company is using a fine product to build cement blocks, it can blow away. He also said the entire lot is gravel.
“We moved some of the lighter weight aggregate that was closer to the houses and we moved it further away… we (put a tarp) on it but with the wind we had the other day, that tarp did get removed,” he said.
Schmidtle also said during the summer months, the company is able to wet its sand and gravel to make sure it doesn’t blow into neighbouring homes. However, during the winter, he said that is a lot harder because of the risk of freezing.
“We have a water truck and it works full time on this site to put water down and you can imagine at this time of year, that’s not possible,” he said. “So when the heavy winds do come up, we have sand and gravel will blow.”
For now, houses along 7 Street N. are left with dirt piles. Schmidtle said the company will build fences in the summer. In the meantime, they plan to work with homeowners.
“Anyone who would like us to clean up the sand in their yards from extreme wind like that, we are happy to do that.”
As for Hauk, he said he is hoping for a solution sooner rather than later.
“We are not looking for repercussions, we just want our house to be back to the way it was,” he said.
The Lafarge operations manager has been in touch with Hauk and they are working to make that happen.
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