Anonymous callers have complained for years about dust emanating from David Souza’s property. However, with the exception of one instance in September 1998, whenever the Department of Health’s Clean Air Branch inspectors drive out to visit, they find nothing.
On several occasions, inspectors observed a screener on the property (a screener separates large debris from soil), a piece of equipment that can kick up considerable amounts of dust and requires a DOH permit for use. On each visit by the Clean Air Branch, inspectors are told different things about the screener – no, we don’t have one, oh there it is, but it doesn’t work, well it works, but we don’t use it, we’re going to move it to a different site any day now.
So far, Souza has escaped enforcement action by the Clean Air Branch. And lucky him. Clean Air violations can result in fines of up to $25,000 per day. So far, he has received only lectures and letters from the branch, asking him to exercise proper dust control.
During the latest inspection on April 25, a woman at the site told the Clean Air inspector that trucks were not bringing material onto the site, and no screening, stockpiling or backfilling occurred on the site, despite an anonymous complaint a few days earlier of ten trucks moving in and out of the property.
Souza’s response to his neighbors’ complaints about dust: It comes with the cleanup and can’t be avoided. “People complain, but how else am I going to do the cleanup? It’s like saying, clean the house but don’t use the vacuum.”
— Teresa Dawson
Volume 11, Number 3 September 200
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