DOMINIC DEVENUTA IN MID-SEPTEMBER, some seven months after Bullseye Glass entered a vortex of regulatory oversight and community outrage over emissions of poisonous heavy metals, it was still sending toxic materials into its neighborhood. Stormwater runoff from the Southeast Portland glassmaker’s roof contained levels of five hazardous heavy metals as much as 33 times the […]
Daniel Forbes
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Bullseye Glass Might Have Polluted Groundwater, Too
State Testing Suggests Nasty Metals Were Draining from its Roof for Decades
State testing suggests heavy metals were draining from its roof for decades.
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Contrary to Bullseye Glass’s Claims, a New State Report Suggests the Company’s Been Releasing Harmful Chromium
Michelle Mitchell THE BAD NEWS, according to the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ): melt the relatively benign metal trivalent chromium (Cr III) in a glass furnace, and 98.4 percent of what’s not captured in the glass emerges as a fierce carcinogen, hexavalent chromium (Cr VI or hex-chrome). The worse news: a properly functioning baghouse […]
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New Forest Service Report Suggests High Lead Levels in Kenton Air
That highlighted pink dot picked up a lot of lead. US Forest Service As expected, the US Forest Service has unveiled its latest moss data on heavy metals in Portland, releasing a report to one outlet Tuesday, and to the rest of the media and the public Wednesday. It’s the most detailed information we’ve seen […]
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The Dirty Seven: Forest Service Moss Data Identifies Portland’s Top Spots for Multiple Heavy-Metal Exposure
The United States Forest Service is slated to release data next week that provide a fuller picture of the heavy-metal pollution captured by moss it collected in December 2013. It’s the same moss data that caused a furor in February, after it helped state officials unearth alarming air toxic levels near Bullseye Glass, findings first […]
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Parents to Schools Superintendent: What Did You Know About Lead in Water? And When?
Superintendent Carole Smith, in less leaden times. Portland Public Schools The question for the angry crowd at Rose City Park school confronting embattled Portland Public School Superintendent Carole Smith Wednesday night comes down to: What did she know and when did she know it? As Smith tells it, elevated lead levels were found at least […]
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Gov. Kate Brown Has Renewed a Cease-and-Desist Order on Bullseye Glass
The high-wire negotiations between Gov. Kate Brown and Bullseye Glass have stalled. Leah Feldon, a special assistant to Oregon Department of Environment Quality (DEQ) Director Pete Shepherd, told the Mercury a short time ago, “Right now I can confirm that we did not reach an agreement today and that there won’t be an agreement reached […]
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Bullseye Glass Took a Risky Bet on Toxic Lead
It Didn’t Count on State Regulators Snapping to Attention
It didn’t count on state regulators snapping to attention.
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As Bullseye Glass Seeks to Resume Chromium Use, Questions Loom
ON MARCH 4, a lawyer for Bullseye Glass emailed the state Department of Justice and Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) to ask to start using trivalent chromium (Cr III). For weeks, Bullseye had been forced to stop using chromium—both the rampant carcinogen hexavalent chromium (Cr VI) and its relatively benign cousin, Cr III. And, according […]
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The DEQ Nearly Pinpointed North Portland Glass Factory Pollution Seven Years Ago
But It Ultimately Came Up Empty
But the agency ultimately came up empty.
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The DEQ Nearly Pinpointed Glass Factory Pollution Years Ago—But Came Up Empty
Pretty windows at North Portland’s Uroboros Glass. Kathleen Marie NEARLY SEVEN YEARS before Portlanders learned that glass factories in town have been sending harmful heavy metals, unabated, into Portland’s air, federal and state officials came close to tracking down one of the sources of those emissions. But for a series of missteps, the Mercury has […]
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Bullseye Glass Skirted EPA Regulation by Making Murky Claims About “Periodic” Furnaces
In September 2007, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed rules to curb emissions from the nation’s glass factories. The rules the agency published for public comment were simple: Make over 50 tons of glass a year and use one of six hazardous air pollutants (HAPs)—arsenic, cadmium, chromium, lead, manganese, or nickel—in your raw materials, […]