Not far from downtown Fayetteville, cement dust swirls over the asphalt on North Street, stirred by passing cars. The air is thick with it. Residents nearby say it gets into their homes on a regular basis and causes them health problems.
Their neighborhood, bound by Ramsey Street and North Street, is small, but includes a public housing project, a youth baseball field, a cemetery, three churches and several single-family homes. It also contains the sprawling operations of Fay Block Materials, a Fayetteville-based company that manufactures concrete masonry and other materials used in construction and landscaping projects.
The factory surrounds the neighborhood. Some homes are neighbored by Fay Block storage lots, where the company stores concrete blocks, piled higher than the houses themselves in some cases. Taking a walk in the neighborhood usually means encountering dust in the air, around curb inlets, or in the puddles of water surrounding the factory.
According to a neighborhood survey conducted by the community’s advocacy group, the Fairview Concerned Citizens Association, 96% of the respondents said cement dust inside their home was a problem. More than half said it was “always” a problem.
Nationally, the cement sector is the third largest industrial source of pollution, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. The industry emits more than 500,000 tons of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and carbon monoxide per year.
Specifically, the EPA’s guidelines say that outdoor storage of masonry materials can result in dust emissions “at several points in the storage cycle,” such as through the unloading and loading materials, strong wind currents and the movements of trucks in the storage pile. Exposure to this fugitive dust is linked to a number of health conditions, such as respiratory illnesses, bronchitis, lung-damage and asthma.
Resident Milton Crosby told CityView his mother suffered from bad asthma, which necessitated him constantly cleaning their home to remove dust coming from outside.
“You can’t go outside and sit if the wind’s blowing,” Crosby said. “It’s so bad, you have to go inside your house; you have to keep the house washed out twice a year to try to keep the dirt off of it. And the noise — it sometimes can be real aggravating, the dust and the trucks coming back there, dumping, slamming the tailgates, machine running.”
Located in a predominantly Black and low-income neighborhood formerly known as “Fairview,” Fay Block has butted heads with generations of neighbors over the years who feel the company hasn’t done enough to keep emissions and dust under control as it had expanded operations around their homes.
Andrew Bryant, president of the Fairview Concerned Citizens Association, described the factory’s pollution as a classic example of “environmental racism” — a form of systemic racism in which low-income communities of color are disproportionately affected by health and environmental hazards as a result of policies and business practices. It can also include the placement of industrial facilities in close proximity to these communities, who are then at greater risk of exposure to toxic pollutants.
The residents’ concerns come as Fay Block has been given warnings by state regulators about its inadequate dust control measures. The N.C. Dept. of Air Quality (DAQ) issued a violation to Fay Block last June after an unannounced April inspection. The city has also recently cited Fay Block for zoning violations.
In an ongoing effort, local faith leaders and residents have been organizing against pollution from the factory, holding regular meetings and brainstorming ways to raise awareness about the conditions in the Fay Block neighborhood.
Health effects
Bryant gives tours of the neighborhood to anyone who’s interested so they can “see how bad” the dust is.
“When most people come here, they look at Fay Block on Ramsey Street, and that’s all they see,” Bryant said. “They don’t know it’s all over this community, and so when people see that, they just say, ‘That ain’t right.’”
Larry Wright, the bishop at Heal the Land Outreach Ministries and a former Fayetteville City Council member, became invested in helping the community after taking one of Bryant’s tours.
“I came over a few months ago,” Wright said. “Bryant took me around, and just the trucks, breathing in the dust — I could taste the concrete almost, the cement dust in the air.”
Neighbors say that, aside from Fay Block being an industrial eyesore, they have concerns about pollution from the factory impacting their health and contaminating the environment. According to the neighborhood survey, 74% of residents said the “business practices” of Fay Block — including creating a large amount of dust, noise or unpleasant smell — created or worsened health problems for them or family members.
“The dust that’s floating in the air is ridiculous — and thank God I don’t hear the noise over on my side,” resident Joyce Holland said at a recent community meeting. “But the dust and the fumes in the air is just really bad. And I do have allergies, and at times it’s just horrible because of all this stuff that’s floating in the air.”
Holland said a battle with blood cancer made her even more troubled by air pollution from the factory.
“I’m really concerned because you don’t know what’s in the air coming over on our side,” Holland said.
Fay Block has declined repeated requests for comment from CityView for this story.
According to Fay Block’s November 2023 air permit renewal application to the DAQ, the factory produces cement, stone, sand and coal ash (fly ash and bottom ash). In 2022, Fay Block produced 5,559 tons of coal ash, including 818 tons of fly ash — a known carcinogen. Fay Block also includes arsenic, an element also known to be cancer-causing, in its cement production process, the permit states.
Residents who spoke with CityView said many of their neighbors have cancer. Ann Smiley, a board member of nonprofit Organizing Against Racism: Cumberland County, which has been helping raise awareness about the issues facing the neighborhood, suggested a connection between the dust from the factory and the prevalence of cancer in the community.
“The dust contains cancer-causing contaminants,” Smiley said. “We know that. And the documentation with all the cancer that’s happened in this neighborhood is horrific.”
Trinity Vetere, a sustainability program coordinator with Sustainable Sandhills, said dust pollutants come in varying sizes, which partly determines how they impact human health. Air pollution at nearly any size can exacerbate heart or lung issues, whether that’s asthma or an illness like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, she said.
“And then of course, as the particle matter gets bigger, we can see that it can have adverse effects on the insides of people’s nostrils and the insides of people’s lungs, because they’re abrasive,” Vetere said. “And people weren’t meant to breathe dirt.”
Regulatory challenges
In the violation notice to Fay Block — issued last June after a surprise air quality inspection in April — the DAQ warned Fay Block it was not “following the fugitive dust prevention plan” required by state statute. This plan dictates that Fay Block water down block piles and roads that are used to haul cement materials on a daily basis, conduct routine visual inspections of dust and monitor moisture levels, and keep records of fugitive dust evaluations and inspections, among other stipulations.
Fay Block responded to the violation notice with a corrective plan and explanation.
“First and foremost, we take environmental, health and safety (EHS) compliance seriously and strive to maintain the highest standards at our facility,” Fay Block said in its response letter. “We understand the importance of maintaining accurate records and documentation, and we sincerely apologize for oversights that have led to the issuance of the NOV [notice of violation].”
Fay Block also said they were reviewing their internal “fugitive dust prevention plan records and personnel responsibilities.” The company acknowledged there were “indeed certain gaps in the documentation,” which they attributed to recent staff turnover.
The DAQ said it was satisfied with Fay Block’s response, but it did not conduct an additional inspection before renewing Fay Block’s permit in December, DAQ public records show.
“The facility corrected the violation to be in compliance with its permit going forward,” a DAQ spokesperson said in an email to CityView. “The Division found the facility’s response was sufficient to resolve the violation and provide expectation for future compliance.”
A DAQ spokesperson told CityView that the division “conducts unannounced inspections at least annually at all permitted industrial facilities.”
“The most recent inspection was in April 2023, therefore DAQ will conduct an unannounced inspection in 2024,” the DAQ spokesperson said.
Neighbors aren’t holding out hope for state regulators to step in, nor are they betting much on the support of local politicians. They have been consulting with nonprofit environmental groups, including the Southern Environmental Law Center and CleanAIRE NC, to further substantiate arguments that Fay Block’s practices are harming their health and environment. They hope eventually to raise enough money to get legal representation or get help from a pro-bono attorney.
This is the third time in two decades that neighbors of the factory have organized en-masse to demand clean air and protection from pollution. The last two demonstrations are documented in Fayetteville Observer articles from 1994 and 2006.
“We have to march,” said Rita MacMillan, a member of the Fairview Concerned Neighbors Association. “We marched before we’ll march again. We have to do what we have to do in order to survive.”
Contact Evey Weisblat at eweisblat@cityviewnc.com or 216-527-3608.
To keep CityView Today going and to grow our impact even more, we’re asking our committed readers to consider becoming a member. Click here to join.
