PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Following a toxic air scare in a few Portland neighborhoods, on Thursday the Department of Environmental Quality announced new temporary regulations for companies that use potentially harmful metals in glass manufacturing.
Things got testy inside the halls of the Oregon Convention Center as a Portland mother confronted the owner of Bullseye Glass. The confrontation happened after a DEQ meeting which left them both unhappy.
The DEQ is now requiring glass manufacturers like Bullseye Glass to install a filtration system for potentially harmful heavy metals like arsenic, cadmium and chomium VI. The filtration systems have to be installed by September 1.
Amy Bacher says her son goes to school near Bullseye Glass. She says the September deadline is too far away.
“My concern is, does that leave the whole summer for emissions, when the kids are outside the most?” she said.
Bacher wasn’t the only one who felt the regulations didn’t go far enough.
“I do feel that there’s things that the DEQ missed as far as raw materials,” said Northstar Glassworks President Abe Fleishman.
Fleishman said the initial toxic air reports were enough to prompt his company’s immediate installation of filtration systems.
“I would hate to ever hear that a neighbor or an employee or anybody got sick from something my facility was doing,” Fleishman said. “If that happened I would just throw the keys away.”
The new temporary regulations are scheduled to take effect Friday, April 22, after they’re filed to the Secretary of State. They’re scheduled to last for 180 days, though they could be made permanent before they expire in late October.