Foul Chemical Mist Rains On Neighbors

It's official: A chemical plant at the edge of a Tampa neighborhood stinks.

Hillsborough County environmental officials who recently visited the community confirmed what residents have been complaining about for months.

"We detected an objectionable odor," said Jerry Campbell of the county's Environmental Protection Commission.

The agency is warning the plant, owned by General Chemical, to reduce its emissions or risk losing its operating permit.

The General Chemical plant releases sulfuric acid mist from a 55-foot stack at the edge of Palmetto Beach. For more than a year, residents have complained to county officials more than a dozen times about caustic, foul-smelling emissions.

Resident Cary Hopkins-Eyles says that sometimes when she and her husband jogged in DeSoto Park near the plant, their eyes and throat burned so badly that they had to go home.

"It's bad when they're pumping that stuff out," said Gary Williams, who works in the park, which runs an after-school program for neighborhood children. "The kids complain."

A spokesman for the company, based in Parsippany, N.J., said that when it received the warning in September it investigated and found that the plant was in compliance with its county permit. But it went ahead and installed equipment to regulate the intensity of the acid coming from the stack. It also staggered the hours of emissions to avoid releases when people were using the park and children were going to and coming from a neighborhood school, DeSoto Elementary.

"We did all that voluntarily," spokesman Mike Ware said.

Despite the changes, neighbors say the plant still stinks, and their throats continue to burn. "If there is a change, it's ever so slight," resident Irene Rodriguez said.

Emissions Are Within Limits

The plant uses sulfuric acid to make aluminum sulfate. The chemical serves an environmental purpose, helping in wastewater treatment. The emissions are the most intense in the first hour or so of production, which takes place twice a day.

Even though emissions are within permitted limits, they meet "the definition of a nuisance under our rule, which is prohibited," Campbell said.

The Environmental Protection Commission has three choices, he said: Issue a new permit like the existing five-year permit, "which is unlikely"; issue a permit with new conditions; or deny the permit, which would close the plant. The agency will decide what to do in the next few weeks, after negotiating with the company for improvements to cut down the odors even more.

Despite being a nuisance, the emissions are not high enough to endanger residents' health, Campbell said.

A commission study this month showed that the mist could cause respiratory damage to someone 210 feet or less downwind of the stack. But the nearest home is more than 490 feet away. The city park and school are beyond that.

The Environmental Protection Commission regulates industrial emissions in Hillsborough County using local, state and federal laws. It considers General Chemical to be a "small source" polluter. The company has about five workers, who aren't required to wear protective gear at work, Ware said.

Rodriguez, who lives about 1,000 feet from the chemical plant, questioned the agency's health findings. She said she can't walk in the park when the plant is releasing the acid because it burns her throat.

"How can they be so sure it's not hazardous when we have so many people with throat and nasal problems when they walk?" she asked. Others have complained to the commission of getting headaches when they are exposed to the mist.

Besides smelling the acid in the air, the commission collected it in tubes to measure the acid content. It also set up models based on typical emissions at the plant and worst-case weather conditions, Campbell said. It is relying on federal and state government studies of when exposure to sulfuric acid becomes hazardous, but Campbell conceded that the General Chemical emissions could be harmful to some residents because some people are more sensitive to acid exposure.

Rodriguez, who has submitted several of the complaints, said she was happy with the agency's response.

"We don't want to shut the company down, we just want to be able to live in our neighborhood without these problems. It seems like a reasonable request to install some new equipment."

Equipment Could Be Added

The company could add scrubbers or "demisters" to reduce the concentration of acid coming from its stacks, at a cost of tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars, Campbell said. One of the pieces of equipment would use fans to blow the mist into something like a large steel-wool pad.

The company said it considered scrubber and demister technologies during its investigation, Ware wrote in an Oct. 10 letter to the commission. But it "concluded neither technology would eliminate odors or be economically feasible to implement."

Ware said the problem is not the plant, which has operated at the edge of Palmetto Beach for about 25 years, but the growth of the neighborhood and expansion of a park with a walking path.

About 2,500 people live in the onetime fishing village and cigar-making community founded in the 1890s. It has grown in recent years, with newcomers attracted to its neighborhood feel and 1920s-era bungalows. Developers are planning condominiums in the area and boat slips.

Hopkins-Eyles moved with her husband to Palmetto Beach about four years ago. They now have an 8-month-old baby, and she worries about the emissions' effect on the infant. She began to notice the emissions about a year ago, when she was pregnant. "We don't want to move. We love it here," she said.

General Chemical is a subsidiary of the GenTek chemical company, which operates about 50 plants across the country.

Campbell said the commission has to act before Nov. 25, when the company's permit expires. A denial would trigger an administrative hearing, at which the company could argue that it is doing business properly and should not be required to install costly equipment.

Ware said that General Chemical is willing to work with the environmental commission but doesn't think the area smells bad.

"That's subjective," he said. "What's an odor that bothers one person is different from an odor that bothers another."