Bay Area air quality regulators have ordered a Vallejo landscape supply company, Crown Hill Materials, to immediately shut down a concrete batch plant that it has allegedly been operating without required air quality permits.
The Bay Area Air Quality Management District issued a notice of violation to Crown Hill Materials on Monday, giving the facility 10 days to provide written notice of any steps taken to comply with the law. The facility violates federal, state, and air district laws, according to the agency’s cease-and-desist letter. If the company fails to comply, BAAQMD said it will “take formal legal action” to shut down the equipment, according to a press release.
Crown Hill Materials did not respond to a request for comment.
BAAQMD began to investigate the facility following a community member complaint, according to the agency.
Ed Kelley, who lives across the street from the plant, has submitted dozens of complaints about the facility to BAAQMD and other agencies. “My house is loaded with dust. Every single day, my wife spends hours just cleaning the cement dust,” he told Open Vallejo in an interview Monday. “But this isn’t just my house. It’s my whole neighborhood.”
Liat Meitzenheimer, president of local environmental organization Fresh Air Vallejo, said the announcement follows a coordinated effort by Kelley and other community members to secure oversight of the facility.
“It’s a longstanding issue,” Meitzenheimer said in a phone interview Monday. Residents in the neighborhood around the plant, located at 1888 Broadway Street, had observed dust emissions — often in the early morning — for years, she said.
BAAQMD’s investigation found that the allegedly unauthorized concrete batch equipment had been “installed and operating” since January 2019, according to the notice of violation.
BAAQMD is coordinating with the city of Vallejo on enforcement, according to the agency.
“The City of Vallejo has completed an inspection of the property and is also working to address identified issues,” spokesperson Robert Briseño wrote in an email to Open Vallejo.
Concrete batch plants can emit fine dust from cement and other additives, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. That dust, known as particulate matter, can affect the heart and lungs and increase the risk of asthma, among other illnesses.
“In addition to being irritating to the eyes, nose and lung passages, very fine particles can enter deep into the respiratory tract and lead to a higher risk of heart and lung disease in residents living nearby,” BAAQMD wrote in an email to Open Vallejo. “These diseases include a greater risk of heart attacks, asthma, and chronic lung disease.”
The area immediately surrounding the Vallejo plant is more burdened by pollution, and more vulnerable to its effects, than more than 90 percent of other census tracts in California, according to a state environmental screening database. It also has one of the highest rates statewide for emergency department visits for asthma.
More than half the residents in the neighborhood surrounding Crown Hill Materials live below the federal poverty level, according to census data.
Everyone in the neighborhood is exposed to clouds of dust, Kelley told Open Vallejo.
“The cement gets on the cars and the dust and eats up the car. It eats up the house, the roof, the aluminum sidings,” he said. “It’s terrible to live in, and we’ve never been able to, until just recently, have anyone help us stop it.”
