Mobile Environmental Justice Champions!

A new air pollution permit from the Alabama Department of Environmental Management (ADEM) for Hosea O Weaver & Sons, Inc’s (HO Weaver) Africatown asphalt business will allow it to continue to operate like the last 25 years haven’t happened, but HO Weaver asphalt has dumped on its neighbors TOO MUCH.

This is a critical opportunity for residents, stakeholders, and advocates to SPEAK UP and get ON RECORD about the impacts that HO Weaver’s Africatown asphalt facility has had on the neighborhood, its assets like the historic cemetery & welcome center, and its visitors.

Please SHARE WIDELY.

Monday, February 5, 2024

Robert Hope Community Center
850 Edwards St, Plateau, Africatown 36610

5-6:30pm – ADEM Availability Session (ADEM will be present to answer questions and talk about their programs)
6:30-8pm – ADEM’s Pollution Permit Public Hearing for HO Weaver

QUICK GLANCE:
• This Public Hearing is happening because WE PROVED that for the past 25 years HO Weaver has done business under the WRONG POLLUTION PERMIT

• HO Weaver’s Africatown asphalt plant was heavily protested when it was constructed due to its pollution impacts & lack of local permits

• HO Weaver’s pollution prevention equipment has malfunctioned repeatedly in the last few years for long periods without serious consequence from ADEM

• ADEM shouldn’t grant a new permit to HO Weaver without direct EPA oversight and a new full site inspection – WE HAVE LOST TRUST IN ADEM

BACKGROUND:
In May 2023, ADEM published a draft Consent Order (remedy and fine for illegal pollution) for a broken pollution control system at HO Weaver, a year and half after Chin Street residents called ADEM to complain about the stench from the asphalt plant.

MEJAC and partners submitted 75 pages of technical Public Comment in response proving what many had long suspected, that HO Weaver had not been operating under the correct federal air pollution permitting program since its original 1998 air pollution permit was issued. We asserted that HO Weaver should’ve been issued a Major Source Operating (T5 Permit) based on the amount of pollution and the type of fuel the facility was described as using for its systems in its original 1998 construction permit. T5 Permits have to be approved every 5 years and allow for the public to be engaged heavily in the process.

The facility was originally designed to burn dirty bunker fuel, which suggests its criterion pollutant levels were WELL ABOVE the annual hundreds of tons of toxic air pollution that should trigger a T5 Permit process as well as much more public engagement and scrutiny.

ADEM’s Consent Order also disclosed that HO Weaver had modified its system to also allow for the burning of methane in the late 00s, but it was unclear if the facility was still burning bunker fuel or not because ADEM never revised its original 1998 permit even though the facility underwent significant upgrades! We demanded that ADEM reinspect the facility under EPA scrutiny to thoroughly document all potential emissions sources.

In response to our comments, ADEM ignored all of our evidence and recommendations and instead doubled down on its authority to refer to a permit that could not be found in a written form anywhere on its Internet-based e-file system. ADEM insisted, we learned later, that it is allowed to create a Synthetic Minor Operating Permits (SMOPs) by an ADEM rule it created, a rule which is NOT an EPA-approved rule or method and thus deeply, deeply problematic and possibly illegal.

Two days before the Thanksgiving 2023, ADEM published, for the first time ever, a publicly available air pollution permit for HO Weaver in its e-file system, and what it reveals is STUNNING.

ADEM is proposing that HO Weaver’s Africatown asphalt facility be restricted to operating only 42% of the year in order to keep the facility below the threshold of a Major T5 Permit, because the facility is STILL burning dirty bunker fuel.

The smell and the haze we all know from the facility can almost certainly be traced to the use of this type of extremely dirty fuel, and ADEM is tacitly admitting that by allowing HO Weaver to operate year-round for the last 25 years, the facility should’ve been operating under a Major T5 Permit all along!!

This Public Hearing will allow directly impacted residents to tell ADEM what living next to the facility, visiting the historic Plateau cemeteries, surveying the future home of the Africatown Welcome Center, or simply going for a walk or bicycle ride nearby is like – FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER!

Please join us in supporting them and GETTING ON RECORD about our own experiences with the asphalt plant’s fumes and haze and dust.

We need to tell ADEM that we DO NOT TRUST THEM and that EPA needs to step in to oversee this process directly.

Monday, February 5, 2024

Robert Hope Community Center
850 Edwards St, Plateau, Africatown 36610

5-6:30pm – ADEM Availability Session (ADEM will be present to answer questions and talk about their programs)
6:30-8pm – ADEM’s Pollution Permit Public Hearing for HO Weaver

Please SHARE WIDELY.

Thanks for all you do to support Environmental Justice in Mobile!!