From Deseret News archives:
Shooting-range firm gets green light
No health violations found, but some residents worry
The company makes shooting range and target equipment for the military, police and gun-sports enthusiasts. The manufacturing process includes cutting metals and heavy-duty paints that include xylene, a hazardous substance found in paints that adhere to metal.
Paint, metal particulate and truck emissions at Action Target easily meet health standards, state air quality director Rick Sprott reported during a presentation to the Provo City Council on Tuesday.
Those findings are based on samples taken last year between Aug. 23 and Oct. 12 at Action Target, 1281 W. 220 North. Homes border the site on three sides.
Neighbors also have not experienced higher cancer rates, said John Amadio, a regional epidemiologist who conducted a study of cancer incidence from 1978 and 2001.
"We compared the neighborhood with one to the south and, from a statistical standpoint, the cancer rates were the same as we would have expected anywhere else in the state," Amadio said."
As the company grew around the turn of the century, neighbors began to complain about the paint smell and diesel fumes from trucks visiting the plant. City inspectors cited the company for zoning violations for painting outdoors at least twice from 2002 to 2004.
The city required the company to move all painting indoors, and the Division of Air Quality required Action Target to reformulate its paint and build a taller air-venting stack for its indoor paint booth.
Test samples showed a reduction in hazardous air pollutants, all far below health-screening standards.
Jenny Taylor has lived across the street from Action Target for 13 years and praised the company for also moving truck traffic away from 220 North.
Taylor isn't convinced that Action Target complies with health and air quality standards when it isn't being monitored. She is in the process of moving her family elsewhere.
"I didn't smell an ounce of paint during that testing time," Taylor said. "But I can smell it sometimes now when I come home from work for lunch."
Sprott said the city and Action Target's neighbors should remain vigilant and said the division of air quality will "enforce that permit stringently."
But he said smells don't necessarily indicate danger.
"Your nose is far more sensitive than instruments. It will actually alert you before particulates reach problematic levels."
Action Target president Kyle Bateman said the company runs a clean shop and residents notice the smell less because of the reformulated paint.
"We do paint, and when we paint it is still possible to smell it," Bateman said. "The reformulation has helped so it is not as bad a smell or as strong a smell. We did a number of things to improve the quality of life for the neighbors."
The reformulated paint also wound up helping Action Target's bottom line.
"We were growing," Bateman said, "which meant we would need to handle a volume of materials that was more than we could handle with our current permitting. With the reformulated paint, we were able to do more within our permit."
E-mail: twalch@desnews.com
