Comments

1
Had either company have been informed at any point during any one of their multi per year visits from DEQ in their 40+ year tenure that their emissions were as harmful as is now being speculated they'd both have installed filtration systems. It was sprung on them suddenly, they had to cut 50% production immediately and have both their home communities and much of the glass community turned against them through all this hype. It's absolutely heartbreaking to see this happen to a small family run business who has always prided themselves in seeking the greenest path to create beautiful glass for artists to use. The DEQ and EPA ought to be the ones making this right, chipping in toward filtration and holding back community backlash at least until the test results are in. It's still yet to be proven that Uro was the cause of these carcinogens as they don't use arsenic and use only encapsulated cadmium. Sorry so long, I could literally go on endlessly with my dismay at this situation.
2
Ryan, Bullseye still has not committed to filtration. A commitment to proper industry-wide emission controls would be all it would take to turn this around.
3
I appreciate the Mercury pursuing this story. And my heart goes out to families nearby the glass factories and other pollution sources like the railroad and road diesel, plating, etching, auto body shops and more.

I'm not a chemist. but I question whether bag houses which Merc articles return to often can solve every problem. Just a guess, bag houses are designed to capture large dust and glass grit. It may take catalytic or wet scrubbers to capture many of the element or compound vapors we are talking about. I would also suggest looking at the boiling points of manufacturing process ingredients. If the boiling point of an ingredient is below the processing temperature, it is unlikely to go up the exhaust stack. Do the elements in glass grit release over years in soil? Do we need to erect diesel containing walls around main roads? How high? How about strengthening Oregon diesel standards? Let's get the science on it.

It should be easy to get multiple grants for Cleveland science students to be the labor for good quality studies.

Keep up the pressure on the city, county, governor and congressmen and senators to quickly get some studies done, issue new standards for capturing glass factory (and other business) pollution and to fund whatever local lab studies and cleanup is necessary in Portland.
4
Soo...leaders in the glass making industry dont know how harmful the toxins they are using are?
In the last 42 yrs they haven't kept up with any new technology in the field of glass making?
With the worlds efforts to stop global warming and the effects of toxins on humans and the environment they haven't heard about filters for glass manufactures?
Hmm interesting.
5
In a world ruled by greedy, heartless bloodsucking corporations; corrupt, mendacious government officials and incompetent, lazy, overpaid, PERS humping regulators, in a time when chaos and uncertainty reign who can you trust but the sci-fi writer; Daniel "L Ron" F*rbes because he KNOWS "The Truth Is Out There". Before you start spending the advance on your book deal and picking the actor for your bio pic you might want to wait for some real answers, not wiki claw crane fantasies you've trolled from the web. If you really want to stir the pot why don't you check out the nuclear reactor run by students on the Reed campus, cuz you know... RADIATION
6
Cindy MPY, I think the emissions from large scale glass manufacturing, brown, green, clear bottles and window, has been studied, and understood.

Art glass has not.

It's a tiny economic niche worldwide, it hasn't been well studied and there is no funding to study it.

That's where Oregon senators can play a role. Hey maybe even OSU.
7
Okay big bad corporation made a boo boo- got anything else? Or is this going to be front page news for the next three months? Portland is still such a small town minded place- everything is a bandwagon and news is more like gossip topic of the month.
8
As near as I can see, right now, Neither business has been given any warning whatsoever as to what the DEQ have sequestered for some time. We have a permit specialist who has asserted that there is no way to filter the fumes. That's not true. We have the dept head not knowing what the mandate of his agency actually is. That's just incompetent. It appears to be an appointed board, That's politics.

What both companies need right now is to filter their stacks. I'm clear on that but to do it, they need guidance from a seemingly incompetent agency as to what the standards should be. That makes it pretty hard. One might question why Washington State OSHA knew most of these details over ten years ago and Oregon did not have a seeming clue. Why is that?

What Portland doesn't need right now is a witch hunt that won't solve a single problem. residents deserve clean air. The companies deserve some guidance as to what to do next since cleaning up is actually achievable. I still view this as solvable if people really want to solve it. If the populace wants pitchforks, that's quite another thing.
9
Am I the only one who notices that the city is encouraging density and new construction in the hot spots?

The Comp Plan may need adjustment.

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