After receiving some complaints about a smell coming from the Essex Magnet Wire plant located in the south part of West Central (bordered by Taylor to the south, Wall to the north, Phenie to the east and the St. Mary’s River to the west), the West Central Neighbohorhood board reached out to the plant to inquire about the smell.
This was the response from Essex:
“We have verified that all of our processes were working correctly and in compliance with the permit conditions from the Indiana Department of Environmental Management. As you may recall, the weather from last week included strong winds with 40+ mph gusts from many different directions and extremely cold temperatures. Stack emissions may have been pushed down to the ground during all the turbulence. Additionally, the odor threshold for some of components in the stack gases is 5 parts per billion (ppb). For comparison, rubbing alcohol has an odor threshold of 40 parts per million (ppm). Our emissions are below applicable regulations based on stack testing that is performed per our permit conditions.”
In response to that, Joel Sauer, President of the WCNA board, reached out to the EPA to verify Essex’s claims.
Here was the EPA’s response:
“Thank you for reaching out to EPA about Essex located in Ft Wayne, IN. We forwarded your concern to EPA’s enforcement program. If you continue to experience concerns in the future, you may file your complaint directly in EPA’s ECHO database – https://www.epa.gov/report-violation.
In addition, EPA looked into Essex Furukawa Magnet Wire USA LLC in Fort Wayne, IN. The chemical manufacturing conducted at this site requires them to submit annual emissions reports of certain toxic chemicals to the Toxics Release Inventory. We use these emissions to calculate estimated human health risks and what these risks may be over a lifetime of exposure should emissions remain steady over time. We reviewed the estimated risk for the area surrounding this facility and found that the estimated cancer risk is 20-in-1 million, meaning if 1 million people were exposed to the air quality in the area, 20 may develop cancer. For some context, the national average risk is 30-in-1 million, so this area in Fort Wayne, IN is below the national average. Additionally, there is no indication that the pollutants emitted by this facility are contributing significantly to this risk in the area. Unlike other pollutants that EPA regulates, air toxics have no universal, predefined risk levels that clearly represent acceptable or unacceptable thresholds. However, the EPA will generally presume that acceptable risk is no higher than 100-in-1 million.
EPA sets National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for six commonly found air pollutants known as criteria air pollutants and regulates hazardous air pollutants, also known as air toxics, from categories of industrial facilities. Ozone and PM2.5 are measured at a newly moved/installed site in Fort Wayne (707 N Coliseum Blvd, Fort Wayne, IN), but because it is new there is not a full valid three year value to compare to the standard for ozone or PM2.5. The current measured values are below the ozone and PM2.5 standard though. An additional site in the Fort Wayne CBSA located at Whitko Middle School in Larwill also measures levels below the PM2.5 and CO standards. Another site measuring ozone is located at Leo HS in Leo, IN and also meets the ozone standard. Locations of these three air monitoring sites are shown in the image attached.
The prior site in Fort Wayne operated through the end of Q3, 2021. With all but the last quarter of 2021, the standards for ozone and PM2.5 were also met at this site as well which was located at 2022 N. Beacon St., Fort Wayne, IN. An interactive map of air quality monitors nationwide can be found here: https://www.epa.gov/outdoor-air-quality-data/interactive-map-air-quality-monitors.
Real time data can be viewed using EPA’s AirNow website which uses the official U.S. Air Quality Index (AQI), a color-coded index designed to communicate whether air quality is healthy or unhealthy for you. Monitoring agencies all over the country send their monitoring data to AirNow to provide national reporting consistency including the monitors in the Fort Wayne CBSA, and the ability to distribute data to the public. In AirNow, you’ll find: current and forecast air quality maps and data, current fire conditions, and health and air quality information.
In addition to regulatory monitors, air sensors are lower in cost, portable, and generally easier to operate than regulatory-grade monitors are widely used in the United States to understand local air quality conditions. EPA’s Air Sensor Toolbox (https://www.epa.gov/air-sensor-toolbox) provides the latest science on the performance, operation and use of air sensor monitoring systems for technology developers, air quality managers, citizen scientists and the public. The public can also loan sensors from R5’s in-house sensor loan program. Additional information on how to request a sensor can be found here.”