Carson City supervisors deny appeal from asphalt company due to environmental, odor violations
Submitted by Kelsey Penrose on Thu, 04/15/2021 - 12:45pm
An appeal of the Tahoe Western Asphalt company, also known as TWA, to reinstate its Special Use Permit after it was revoked by the Planning Commission in February, was denied during the Carson City Board of Supervisors meeting Thursday.
Tahoe Western Asphalt has appeared in numerous Board of Supervisors meetings since 2019 after they were found to be in violation of their special use permit conditions by allowing a noxious odor to emanate from their facility, which settled in nearby neighborhoods, creating a public nuisance.
TWA and their representatives stated during the meeting that all investigated complaints were found to be, “false-positives, to use the current en vogue COVID nomenclature,” and that all complaints should be found invalid.
“Any complaints not confined by physical investigation should be deemed false and disregarded,” stated the letter submitted to the board by TWA’s representation.
They also stated that none of the complaints came from Carson City residents but instead were from Lyon County residents.
“I know the smell of an asphalt plant isn’t like a McDonalds or like a rose, but there certainly … there are particular elements of an asphalt stream that generate odors such as benzene, we can monitor that,” said the TWA representative during the meeting.
The Planning Commission found that TWA has been in violation of its Nevada Department of Environmental Protection (NDEP) permit since it received a stop work order on Aug. 14, 2020 with a demand to bring the operation into compliance.
One condition of approval of the Special Use Permit was that the applicant shall comply with any requirements from NDEP. When they received a violation by NDEP, that also became a violation of the Special Use Permit, according to the Planning Commission.
Since the stop work order, no complaints of odor emanating from the TWA plant have been reported.
The TWA representatives suggested that the odors could be coming from other sources such as the Brunswick Canyon Materials Facility.
Supervisor Stacey Giomi said that he found it offensive that TWA would suggest that because the complainants were not in Carson City that the board shouldn’t care, and that to cast blame toward another business that has been operating for decades is also offensive.
“I find it offensive (…) the suggestion that we shouldn’t care (about the Lyon County residents), that we should issue you the permit because those people aren’t in our county,” said Giomi. “You can try and say that’s not what you’re saying, but that’s what you’re saying.
“We’re not trying to be a bad neighbor, we want to be a good neighbor, but we want to operate,” said TWA.
City staff stated they were confident the odors were coming from TWA because when they investigated the odors, they were strongest at the plant and weakened as they drew away from it.
Supervisor Maurice "Mo" White went against the consensus of the Planning Commission and the rest of the Board of Commissioners, stating that it could be an asphalt recycling plant on Newman Lane, and that TWA employees people, therefore they should keep the Special Use Permit intact.
“There’s also an asphalt recycling plant on Newman Lane and has anyone looked at what they might be contributing to this situation?” asked Supervisor White. “There’s been no complaints from that person (that lives next to the asphalt plant) about odor. I have to wonder how significant the issue really is when, if you look at the log of site visits and neighborhood visits, it's pretty sporadic.”
White stated he was doubtful whether people making visits actually detected an odor of asphalt.
“Again, with neighboring asphalt (recycling) plant, I don’t know how you could tell it’s coming from one place to another. I understand the winds are from west to east but I don’t know. I don’t know what the source is.”
“They have a violation of their NDEP permit,” said Mayor Lori Bagwell. “Do we all agree to that? In my opinion we would uphold number one (violation) with the planning commission because that is indeed a fact, as evidenced even by the appellant.”
“It keeps people employed,” said White. “They have a wide latitude of things they can do when they’re dealing with an operator that hasn’t been completely forthcoming. I think if this company is indeed going to now act in good faith and be a good neighbor with new lawyers and NDEP on them, I think allowing this Special Use Permit to stand may be an incentive for them to continue. My concern is we keep people employed, and then we mitigate this.”
“Well, they’re not acting in good faith,” said Supervisor Stan Jones.
“I’m highly disturbed that the permit submitted to NDEP did not include the equipment for odor to be reduced,” said Mayor Bagwell. "That is a promise that the appellant has not upheld. You’ve had since 2018 to purchase odor detectors to determine whether or not your plant was emanating an odor that was inappropriate.”
The appeal was denied on a vote of 4-1 with Supervisor White voting no. However, TWA can submit a new Special Use Permit application that will be reviewed with the stipulations that any odor-control equipment will be purchased prior to the new Special Use Permit being approved.
