North Providence, RI - Neighbors Stand Up To the Neighborhood Polluter

The residents in North Providence have had enough. For over fifty years, Johnston Asphalt has been operating in the middle of residential neighborhoods and on the banks of the Allendale Mill Pond, which is fed by the Woonasquatucket River. Asphalt is a petroleum product, and asphalt plants release cancer-causing chemicals into our air, including formaldehyde, benzene, arsenic, mercury and lead.  Neighbors of Johnston Asphalt always knew that the plant was polluting harmful toxins, but the levels seemed small enough that they didn’t do much about it.

Things changed five years ago when the plant switched ownership.  Since then, the plant has belched out pollution that residents call “unbearable.”  Nancy Bolduc has lived in the area since the 1960s and she describes soot-like substances on the sides of houses and clouds of dust and smoke drifting across the water from the asphalt plant. Many residents report feeling like prisoners trapped in their own homes, as the stench and accompanying symptoms force them to keep all windows closed and keep their children and family members inside.  

The asphalt plant was built before any modern-day environmental permits were required. To this day, Johnston Asphalt does not undergo regular tests for polluting air emissions; instead, plant owners are trusted to self-report data on tons of asphalt per year and type of fuel used and then the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM) calculates the emissions using a standard formula.

This past winter, Toxics Action Center Community Organizer Taryn Hallweaver teamed up with a group of residents who come together under the group name Environmental Neighbors United Fighting Fumes (ENUFF).  Hallweaver is assisting the group in developing a strategic plan to convince the DEM to investigate the Johnston Asphalt.  An integral component of that plan is launching a grassroots pollution monitoring project, which will engage hundreds of residents in tracking and documenting pollution emitted from the plant this summer. 

"We believe that the system of voluntary pollution reporting is flawed. The residents in this neighborhood know that air emissions from the Johnston Asphalt plant are a real threat to their health and quality of life,” said Hallweaver.  The grassroots pollution monitoring project will allow ENUFF to gather critical data on how pollution is actually affecting the neighborhood, and then use that data to make the case that more regulation is needed. ENUFF and Toxics Action Center are currently going door-to-door in the area to spread the word about the project.