Coraopolis residents sue concrete plant for dust and noise

Colin Schreiber, 30, is raising a 1-year-old boy with his fiance on a partly vacant block in Coraopolis across the street from a noisy concrete plant. He recently gave up his job as a security guard at the airport because, he said, he would get home around 6 a.m. right as the machinery hummed to life, rattling his windows and denying him sleep.

Schreiber said the operators have no regard for nearby neighbors, which include the occupants of a low-income apartment complex and a senior high-rise. 

“I think they should have to pay the residents for the damage they’ve caused,” he said. 

Justin Bryan, 39, lives a few miles away in Moon. He’s a proud fifth-generation business operator who said he’s excited about investing in Coraopolis through the plant his family acquired there three years ago.

“We want to bring jobs back to the area and we really want to start reinvesting in the community,” he said.

“I’d love to be here as a good neighbor 70 years from now.”

The task of weighing these competing narratives may soon fall to a judge. In October Schreiber, with the help of Fair Shake Environmental Legal Services, issued a 60-day notice of intent to sue Bryan’s company. He’s presenting nuisance claims, alleging multiple environmental violations, seeking damages from the company and urging stronger oversight from county and state regulators.

The pending class action suit also claims dust generated by the facility exposes residents to “known hazardous substances” that increase their risk of disease and health problems.

The plant, Riverside Builders Supply, makes concrete by mixing sand, cement, gravel and water, before transporting it to contractors for use on job sites. The Bryan Materials Group recently took over the aging facility, and according to Justin Bryan, plans a series of updates and improvements. He says in a good year the plant will distribute about 3,000 truck loads but in leaner times it could be as few as 1,800.

According to the filing, trucks rolling out of the site frequently stir up clouds of dust that settle over cars and windows in the surrounding blocks. Washing out the equipment results in polluted water discharges entering the stormwater system, it alleges.

The facility submits semiannual discharge reports to the state Department of Environmental Protection, and the Allegheny County Health Department [ACHD] monitors its emissions, according to Bryan, who said it has not been warned of noncompliance or red flags.

“They’ve made suggestions … and that’s again the best management practice,” he said of ACHD, noting the county last entered the site for a spot inspection in November. “They’re great to work with.” 

Amie Downs, spokesperson for the Health Department, acknowledged an uptick in resident complaints involving the facility and said the department has taken appropriate action.

The advocacy group Allegheny County Clean Air Now [ACCAN] has compiled a document logging 59 nuisance incidents, between March 2022 and November 2023, that it says were recorded by residents or members of its organization. 

Downs said the county has logged 18 official complaints in that time. Some of those may include more than one incident. “All [complaints] have been responded to in a timely manner,” Downs said in an email. 

Coated in dust

Bob Kricos lives two doors down from Schreiber on Pennsylvania Avenue. In the eight years he’s lived there, his two children have become prone to fits of coughing and sneezing that he attributes to dust from the plant.

At first, he said, the issues weren’t that bad. The former owners ran a diminishing operation, and the site was far less active until Bryan took it over and ramped up production.

Recently, he said, things have become intolerable and he’s often driven out of bed before 6 a.m. His biggest concern remains the dust, though. 

“The plant creates a very fine dust that coats and clogs up everything outside and inside my house,” he wrote in a statement delivered to ACHD officials during a recent Board of Health meeting. “The cars, roads and houses are all coated in cement dust. … We clean daily and it looks like you didn’t clean the next day. There is a perpetual layer of cement dust on everything.”

In hopes of improving their indoor air quality, Kricos has set up five filters in different areas of his home. He’s made some himself by taping furnace filters around a box fan to form a sealed cube trapping unwanted particles. He also owns professional grade air cleaners supplied through a partnership between ACCAN and the Pittsburgh-based group ROCIS, for Reducing Outdoor Contaminants in Indoor Spaces.

Angelo Taranto, ACCAN’s secretary, said he has been engaging the community around Riverside since residents, including Schreiber, began reaching out with concerns last spring. 

Taranto has canvassed homes along Pennsylvania Avenue, including the low-income housing at Coraopolis Gardens and, farther along on 1st Avenue, senior living high-rise Coraopolis Towers. Most were familiar with the facility’s disruptions, he said, but few accepted free filters.

Taranto said the cleaners offer immediate help, while efforts for firmer oversight and regulation could take years.

The cleaners work by filtering out particles of any variety or origin that could impact human health, said Linda Wigington, team leader at ROCIS.

“Particles from any number of sources can really aggravate acute conditions as well as chronic conditions,” Wigington added.

“The unique situation in Coraopolis with the concrete plant is that they’re just so close to it.”

Kricos said his children’s symptoms have eased since installing the equipment.

“It doesn’t solve the problem but it’s a lot better,” he said. “My kids were coughing and sneezing constantly before we got this.”

Tracking the trucks

Schreiber, Krikos and Taranto have submitted complaints to the Health Department, often including photographs showing swirling dust clouds or other alleged infractions. They say the department responded by installing 5 mph speed limit signs around the site and also requiring a fugitive emission management plan. But Taranto said Riverside’s six-page plan outline lacks the teeth of a federal Title V permit, which is required of high-pollution facilities.

Downs confirmed the fugitive emissions plan resulted from the Health Department’s recent engagement with the facility, adding that concrete batch plants are generally exempt from permitting requirements if they’re fitted with a particulate matter filter. She declined to confirm whether Riverside employs such a filter.

Bryan said he employs a sprinkler system and street cleaners across the yard to reduce dust and encourages his employees to consider the neighbors while going about the inevitably disruptive work of concrete production.

“That’s what I preach to my guys. … It’s just, ‘Let’s be, you know, generally respectful,’” he said.

ACCAN is gearing up to launch a web page dedicated to documenting the facility. Using technology developed by CMU’s CREATE Lab, the site will present air quality data along with camera footage using a monitor and camera installed on Kricos’ property. 

ACCAN also intends to publish copies of complaints submitted to ACHD – along with any responses – in a blog format. Since 2021, the group has maintained a similar page documenting alleged violations at a metal scrapping plant a few miles upstream on Neville Island. That plant, owned by Metalico, is the subject of an ongoing class action lawsuit alleging its emissions and noisy operations make it a public nuisance culpable of negligence. 

Planting a better future

Before he was hit with a notice to sue in early October, Bryan said, he had no direct contact with Schreiber or other angered residents. If they’d called or even sought him out on site, things may have turned out differently, he added.

“I wish they would have come talk to me,” Bryan said. “We want to integrate in the community.”

Randon Willard, executive director of the Coraopolis Community Development Corporation, said he couldn’t speak to the environmental concerns but noted that Riverside has given generous donations to the corporation’s food pantry and snack pack programs.

“They have been very invested,” Willard said of Riverside. “I know Justin personally and he wants to see the Coraopolis community thrive and grow.”

When the company took over Riverside in 2020, the aging plant had more or less run its course, Bryan said. They kept on the three employees that came with the sale and have since built the workforce back to a complement of 26. 

Bryan said he’s already working on a series of updates and modifications he expects will head off neighbor concerns, however the suit shakes out. 

Subject to borough approval, the rickety equipment will be outfitted with sleek and efficient retrofits. More importantly for the likes of Schreiber and Kricos, Bryan plans to enclose it within a building that would trap much of the dust and noise. And the narrow wedge of grass that separates the plant from the public street will be walled and landscaped.

“We want to be here,” Bryan said. “This is a good spot for us. We want to really spend some money and reconfigure a lot of that to modernize it.”

Bryan said he sympathizes with their concerns but notes the plant – founded in the 1960s – has been there far longer than most of the residents.

“If I had a home and somebody or the borough rezoned across the street and put up a concrete plant that would be difficult,” he said. “Except this has always been here.”

Schreiber and Kricos both said they’ve considered moving but are limited on options. Both say their children’s health and futures drive on their opposition to the plant.

“I just want to live peacefully and raise my kids in a safe environment,” Kricos told ACHD.

Jamie Wiggan is deputy editor at PublicSource. He can be reached at [email protected].

This story was fact-checked by Rich Lord.