Tuesday, May 19, 2009
ASC's "Environmentally-Sound" Choice Has Not Convinced B'ham Neighbor
The heat was pushing 100 degrees, and the weather was dry July 9, 2007. Buckingham felt just a bit like an oven. As well, the corner of N. Glebe and N. Carlin Springs roads smelled of chemical solvents at about quitting time that Monday.
One person in the neighborhood told the county that the American Service Center Body Shop where workers painted up to 250 cars a month on N. Glebe Road, was illegally dumping noxious fumes into the air.
The double-wide, glass doors on the Glebe Road side of the building on that day were wide open, and two, newly painted, black Mercedes sat just inside. The sidewalk in front of those doors was dusted with paint from the shop floor. The stench was incredible. “I don’t deal with air quality,” said Richard Freeman at that time. He is a county code enforcer. He said air quality is much more a job for the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, which said some of those issues were the concern of the federal Environmental Protection Agency. In the late summer of 2007, Mr. Freeman said he was only concerned with overspray on the property, and he had seen the booths that the painters used and the certificates from the state saying that they were in compliance. He said he had gone by a few times to smell and hadn’t noticed anything that bad. As well, the fire marshall conducts an annual audit of the location and has found nothing wrong. In 2006, the EPA checked out the site and found nothing wrong. In a recent interview, Body Shop Manager Jim Bergin denied having illegally dumped fumes. At the time, you could not have told that to Mick Pulliam, the resident of The Carlin, an apartment high rise at 4300 N. Carlin Springs, who was trying to get the county to investigate. He said the stench in his building’s backyard, which sits adjacent to ASC’s backyard, was overwhelming. “Nothing can be done unless the inspector actually sees the infraction,” Mr. Pulliam wrote in an email in 2007. “It seems that the paint trail coming from inside the building, and going almost out to the road, is not proof of where the paint is coming from.” Code inspectors checked the paint on the sidewalks and determined it was allowable, as it was not overspray, but dust from the sanding room floor that the tires tracked outside with them. The good news for Mr. Pulliam is that these arguments may be moot. Last November, ASC switched their paints from solventborne to waterborne, and they have finished a renovation of the building at 640 N. Glebe that includes air conditioning, so the door should not need to be opened. They are first in Arlington to make the switch to waterborne paints. "American Service Center has made an environmentally-sound decision to convert its shop from a solventborne system," the company wrote in a press release last April. (The person who could speak to these issues at Specialty Auto Body, the other paint shop on nearby N. Quincy Street, was out of the office until next week, the manager said.)
“Waterborne paint is almost odorless,” said Matthew Shaffer, the BASF paint sales representative at ASC. Paints are roughly 80 percent liquid. That liquid makes it possible for the paint to be sprayed onto a surface. The liquid dries off and the pigment remains. Waterborne paints shift the liquid from a chemical solvent—such as xylene, toluene or methyl ethyl ketone—to water, and therefore the smell from the evaporating liquid changes from chemical to virtually nothing. As well, the air in the paint booth goes through "two or three filtering systems" before being released to the atmosphere, Mr. Bergin said. "It emits less...contaminants."
“This one was painted 45 minutes ago,” Mr. Bergin said. He stood in the finishing area of the paint shop where the cars get buffed after painting. If it were going to smell, it would smell the worst right where he was standing he said. “Eventually, [the use of waterborne paints] is going to be mandated,” he had said earlier. That’s what happened last year in Canada. California has already made the shift. It’s more than a quality-of-life issue for people living around a body shop. The solvents are Volatile Organic Compounds, which, when loosed into the air and bombarded by sunlight, can create ozone and other pollutants. According to the EPA, one category of the solvents, diisocyanates, is the number one cause of workplace asthma. In January 2008, the EPA issued rules that required many industries, including auto paint shops, to lower their VOC emissions, but they did not require a switch to waterborne paints. Mick Pulliam is not so sure about any of this. “We shall see if there is an improvement. However, I am not sure that the type of paint is going to change much. The idea of having paint fumes in my lungs does not make me happy. (No matter what kind of paint they use.),” he wrote in a recent email. Labels: american service center, environment
Wednesday, April 08, 2009
HeraldTrib Today April 8, 2009
At last week’s PTA meeting, K.W. Barrett Elementary School Principal Terry Bratt said she is requesting two trailers for the fifth grade. If the request goes through, they will be placed in the school’s backyard near the playground used by the youngest children, close to the back of the school.
I don’t know who brought up the topic at the PTA meeting, but it was one that had me wondering: why didn’t Barrett nominate a teacher of the year? Kenmore Middle School teacher Elizabeth H. Castillo won the honor this year, and with the announcement came a list of nominated teachers. None from Barrett made the list. Why not? wondered parents in attendance.
Turns out Barrett staffers don’t want it. They don’t like the idea of singling out one teacher over another.
“We operate as a team,” said Rosa Briceno, the family involvement coordinator who was at the PTA meeting as a translator.
“People turn you down” when you go to nominate them, Mrs. Bratt said.
Even nominating Laurie Sullivan who won teacher of the year a few years back was difficult staff in attendance said.
“People turn you down,” Mrs. Bratt said.
But parent Sylvia Ortli said, “I’ll tell you what I see…Barrett doesn’t care.” It was an idea echoed by the parents in the room, with another person wondering if the school system could include a list of schools that did not compete, for clarity.
“Believe me, we have philosophical talks about it,” Mrs. Bratt said.
Taylor Elementary School fifth grader Ben Gessel placed second at the Virginia state level competition of the 2009 National Geographic Bee, reports Arlington Public Schools.
His mother, Marcy, a friend and long-time HeraldTrib reader wrote:
“You betcha it's our Ben! We are extremely proud. This was Ben's first trip to the state bee--and Taylor's first time participating. The boy who won against Ben, a 7th-grader from Herndon, had been to the state finals last year. Another boy came over to us after the competition. He had been one of the top 10 finalists, but went out relatively early. Turns out he was last year's state champion. We're excited that Ben will have 3 more chances to compete because you can keep trying through 8th grade.”
She also wrote that Ben just reads a lot of maps for fun. Good job, Ben!
I went to an association meeting at the Hyde Park condominium, the 12-storey high-rise mixed-use building built in the 1970s at the northwest corner of N. Glebe at N. Henderson roads. This is the second event regarding the proposed development that I have covered.
Personally, I find this stuff fascinating. The zoning, planning, the just-under-boil emotions. All a lot of fun. The problem, of course, is that many of you probably don't feel the same, don't want all the nitty-gritty zoning stuff. So, I cut that from the story, and in the summarization, pray that I don't get anything wrong. Let me know if I have. Find the link to the story below.
The Week’s Headlines…
As always, you can scroll down to see all the recent stories, or simply click the links below (if the link doesn't work, scroll down to find the story, and email to tell me what's busted: heraldtrib@gmail.com --Steve Thurston).
Today's Headlines:
Announcements:
Headlines from Earlier in the Week:
Letters and Comments:
Announcements:
Labels: american service center, aps, Barrett, bee, hyde park
Monday, March 09, 2009
Mercedes Dealer to Redevelop
Earlier tonight Arlington’s Site Plan Review Committee considered plans for a redevelopment of the American Service Center Mercedes dealership at the corner of N. Glebe Road at N. Quincy Street. The dealership is proposing a six-storey building that will combine many of the of the dealership’s operations under one roof.
The dealership’s managers gave the SPRC and other stakeholders in the community a tour of the facility on Saturday in order to show what a large operation it is and what would be compiled under one roof. The dealership employees about 275 people, sold about 1,000 cars last year, and had total sales of about $170 million, said General Manager Ralph Mastantuono.
“We take a lot of pride in this place,” Mr. Mastantuono said.
At its tallest, the new building would reach about 79 feet, said officials of the project. Although portions of the property would allow this development, others require zoning changes. By comparison the Ballston Commons Mall parking lot is about 55 feet. The Hyde Park Condominium which would sit across N. Glebe from the building is about 120 feet.
Tom Lauria, Hyde Park’s vice president, wrote in an email that they have been late in coming to the discussion about this project, but that they will ask to lower the building to four storeys.
Labels: american service center, asc, redevelopment
