Lafarge Bath Cement Plant has issued an apology letter to the residents of Bath, taking responsibility for the mystery dust that showed up on people’s vehicles last week.
They’re calling it “clinker dust,” saying it’s a granular form of cement used as an ingredient to make concrete.
They’re blaming the release of the substance on a under-performing air filter that they say has since been fixed.
“The initial mechanical issues have been addressed and we are adding instrumentation to provide better and more detailed data about the filter system to take corrective action quicker,” stated the letter, written by cement plant manager Ignacio Arroyo.
Carson Rand is one of many residents living in the Loyalist Country Club Community who was affected by the dust and says he’s glad to see Larfarge is taking responsibility and apologizing.
“Now that there’s more people in the area and the population has grown here, I think they should be more forthwith getting more pollution controls on their stack and their filter house and more alarms and they should be more prudent with them” Rand told Global News.
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He says he finds dust on his car frequently and questions Larfarge’s promise that it won’t happen again.
“It will happen again,” Rand said. “They can’t prove to me or the ministry of environment that it won’t happen again. There’s no guarantees.”
Lafarge, meanwhile, estimates that the clinker dust released into the air is 20 times lower than the limit for their workers during an eight-hour work day.
“We are able to reaffirm our observation that there should be no long term health effects,” the company stated.
But statements like that don’t sit well with Rand and leave more questions.
“So do we all wear masks like their employees, or do their employees not wear masks?” said Rand
“Do they get chest X-rays every year for lung capacity? Should Lafarge pay for our chest X-rays for lung capacity because they’ve polluted?” said the Bath resident.
“I mean, you can go on and on and dig into it as far as you want.”
Lafarge didn’t respond to an interview request with Global News. In their letter to residents, however, they’re asking anyone who was affected by the clinker dust to contact the plant to arrange for free cleaning services.
Meanwhile, the ministry of environment’s investigation into the situation is ongoing.