Mapleton says TNT tainting city's air

PROVO — Through its attorney, Mapleton is accusing a Spanish Fork explosives-making company of contaminating the air by burning toxic chemicals as it prepares to permanently shutter its plant.

Doug Thayer, Mapleton's attorney in a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against Ensign-Bickford, said city leaders are very concerned about air-quality tests that found TNT residue in the air.

In mid-November, Industrial Hygiene Resources tested the air quality in the city and found the "unnatural, man-made, toxic chemical of TNT" in two sampling locations close to the Ensign-Bickford site, which is preparing to close.

In another "dust-swipe" test in December, the testing company's president and senior scientist, Harry J. Beaulieu, found HMX and RDX — particles of explosives — in all five testing areas in Mapleton.

"Mapleton residents' exposure to TNT is a result of its movement from the Ensign-Bickford site from contaminated soil directly to air (with wind), and from soil to groundwater," Beaulieu wrote in an affidavit filed in 4th District Court.

However, the test results are still below the national standard for particulates, said Jon Black, environmental engineer with Utah's Division of Air Quality.

The national standard for a 24-hour period is 150 micrograms of particulates per cubic meter. All of the air samples were less than 15 micrograms or particulates per cubic meter, according to court documents. Those particulates include everything that might be in the air, such as TNT or other explosive particles.

"Realistically, they're within a safe limit of what they're emitting," Black said.

The Division of Environmental Quality will follow up on the concerns Thayer raised in a letter the agency received Friday. The letter included the results of the studies.

"We just need more information to determine what, if any, risks are being posed," said Dianne Nielson, executive director of the DEQ.

Nielson said the state has been — and will continue to be — involved in the plant efforts to clean up its site as it prepares to close.

Ensign-Bickford, which will permanently close its doors Feb. 28, and its predecessors have been operating near the mouth of Spanish Fork Canyon since the early 1940s. In the early 1980s, investigators found chemicals leaching from the factory into Mapleton city wells.