MANCOS – For years, Western Excelsior’s neighbors have complained about the company’s dust raining down on their homes, but this summer, management plans to purchase new machinery to sharply reduce pollution.
At Western Excelsior, the blowers filling 25-foot-long sausage-shaped nets with straw are the main source of pollution, Kyle Hanson, the business unit manager, said. These cylinders, known as wattles, are used for erosion control. The blowers face the outdoors, and as straw wattle production has grown during the last two years, so has pollution.
Previously, the company had made more products with wood shavings known as excelsior.
“The straw fibers are much lighter weight, and they fracture into little pieces and act like hang gliders,” Hanson said.
The company plans to purchase a $180,000 machine expected to arrive in June. The machines would transfer the straw using rotating auger blades in an enclosed container and eliminate the blowers. This is part of the company’s push to automate repetitive labor.
“Out of the biggest source of our particulates, it’s going to all go away,” he said.
The new system also would bring waste straw from the production line making straw blankets and reduce waste.
Waste sawdust and straw from the plant are currently dumped outside the plant by a conveyer belt, and the wind often catches the dust.
The company would like to install a walking floor trailer that would enclose the dump site, help transfer the waste more directly to a truck and prevent it from blowing away. But Hanson said there are no immediate plans to purchase a trailer because of the cost.
He presented the plan at a Town Board meeting two weeks ago.
“I think it’s really positive, I would just like to actually see some results now,” Mayor Rachael Simbeck said.
In July, Hanson committed to reducing pollution by 30 percent in a year and 60 percent in two years. He stepped into his current position, akin to a general manager, in November 2012.
Anthony and Vicki Maestas came to the meeting to question him because they live in the area of the worst pollution, according to a study by Western Excelsior. Approximately 4.7 million microscopic particles were collected in one hour at their house, Hanson reported in July.
The couple has been to town meetings on the issue to complain about the excessive dust causing damage to their roof and coated their yard.
Vicki Maestas said she was happy to hear there was a plan to improve the emissions. She said she also appreciated the mayor asked the company for an update.
“We need to relook at this in another six months, so that there can be resolution,” she said.
