/////You’ve got some alphabet soup in here? You need to cut back on the acronyms.

I would honestly start with Babino. He seems to have the most compelling story here, with three people in his family with cancer. I wanted more detail on his story. That could then be balanced out with your research – the tour and the EPA study. Those sections need to be refined a little. They need to give simple and straightforward explanations without slowing the reader down to much, because they’ll lose interest. It’s a tough thing to do, I know./////

Snacking on an apple and dismissing health fears////why are you using this detail?/////, Pete Gellerson explained asphalt production Thursday at a Scarborough asphalt plant in full operation.

Shaw Brothers Construction, Inc., of Gorham is proposing a similar but bigger asphalt plant along with a quarry in Gorham. The Gorham Town Council will consider amendments to town ordinances Tuesday, Sept. 4, that could pave the way for approval of the company’s plans in Gorham.

The Gorham construction company bought the Commercial Paving asphalt plant earlier this year and ////allowed the American Journal to tour that plant last week to view the operation first hand////unecessary/////. Besides Commercial Paving, other southern Maine asphalt plants are in Limerick and in two cities, Portland and Westbrook.

Paul Bois of Deer Hill in Westbrook lives one half mile from the Pike Industries’ asphalt plant in Westbrook. He said there’s no dust and no noise to speak of and praised the plant as a neighbor. Bois feels a little tremor about once every two weeks when there’s blasting in the quarry but said there’s no problem.

Gellerson said the ingredients of pavement include crushed stone mined from quarries, sand and recycled pavement. The ingredients are mixed with a dark, liquid asphalt cement and stored at 300 degrees temporarily in a silo where trucks are loaded for transport to job sites.

He said asphalt production doesn’t present health risks. But a Gorham resident with three cancer patients in his family fears an asphalt plant in Gorham////You need more here or it comes off as a completely random detail. What types of cancer? Who were they? Does he believe rising cancer rates are linked to cancer?/////.

The process from quarries to the finished product is regulated under federal and state laws and several licenses are required from by////from or by?////// the Maine Department of Environmental Protection. Gorham resident Dave Babino and other critics of locating a plant in Gorham worry that emissions from the manufacturing of pavement could lead to health problems like cancer. But the head of compliance for air emissions at the Maine Department of Environmental Protection last week called public exposure to asphalt plant emissions minimal.

Rick Perkins, head of the compliance unit for air emissions at the Maine DEP, said any new asphalt plant would first have to meet what is known as best available control technology (BACT)////what?////, would be subject to federal rules which include new source performance standards (NSPS)////again, what?//// and associated particulate testing, not to mention emissions limits and operating conditions in their air emissions license. “Once a license is received, the source would be added to an inspection list and subject to unannounced compliance inspections.” Perkins said.

An emission assessment report prepared for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in December 2000 said emissions associated with the production of asphalt includes particle matter and a variety of gases including sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides carbon monoxide and volatile organic compounds along with hazardous air pollutants.

According to the glossary in “The Plain English Guide to the Clean Air Act produced by the EPA,” many volatile organic chemicals are also hazardous air pollutants like benzene///benzene? What’s that?///// and cause cancer. The guide also said fireplaces and woodstoves, dry cleaners, printing plants and automobiles release hazardous air pollutants.

The assessment cites emission points in the production process besides so-called fugitive emissions from stockpiles of materials and while loading trucks with pavement.

“The liquid asphalt is stored in heated tanks and has components in it that are considered (volatile organic compound) VOCs and (hazardous air pollutant) HAPs. Since the vapor pressure of the petroleum compound is relatively low and therefore not all that volatile, combined with the fact that asphalt plants are typically located in areas away from the general population, I would argue that actual exposure to the public would be minimal, “Perkins said.

An Illinois Department of Public Health report said potential for adverse health effects is expected to be low from an asphalt plant licensed there. The North Carolina Department of Environmental and Natural Resources concurred in a report in 2002 that its citizens living near asphalt plants compliant with air emissions standards shouldn’t be exposed to unhealthy levels of emissions.

But Gorham resident Dave Babino said in an e-mail////an e-mail? We didn’t interview him?//// last week he has looked at all of the cancer causing agents that this plant would omit into the air and related back to the agents that are thought to have caused his wife’s, his mother’s and his daughters cancer. “There is over whelming evidence///Did he offer any?///// that the toxins from such plants do in fact cause cancer and being so close to the residents of Gorham seems short sighted,” said Babino.

Babino moved his family to Gorham to escape industry. He said his wife was raised in an industrial part of Pennsylvania, his mother was raised in an industrial part of Maine, and his daughter was born near an industrial waste area ( “that I did not know about until after the fact”///What?/////).”Now I have three of the most important people in my life all sick and dying from cancer…” Babino said.

“There’s nothing for anyone to fear in any way shape, or manner,” who has been around asphalt plants for three decades.////Is this Gellerson?/////

Here’s how asphalt pavement is produced. Gellerson, the plant manager at Commercial Paving, said a ton of hot mix typically includes 20 percent recycled asphalt pavement, which is crushed before re-using. Gellerson, who previously had been a general manager for Blue Rock in Westbrook, said there is residual value in the old asphalt. “RAP////What?//// has dollar and cents value,” Gellerson said.

Besides a stockpile of recycled pavement, Commercial Paving also had stocks of two stone sizes trucked in from Gorham, one from an existing Shaw Brothers’ quarry and the other from Grondin’s; and stone dust, which Gellerson called “man-made sand,” trucked from a Shaw Brothers’ operation in Dayton.

Perkins said moving and storing crushed rock and other aggregates liberates///liberates?//// a fair amount of dust, which has the potential of being an air quality problem. “They are required to control dust,” Perkins said.

A front-end loader fills the cold, raw material from the stockpiles into six separate bins. Utilizing computer control, the material is then fed by conveyors to a shaker screen, which kicks out big rocks, before the material goes into a rotating, cylindrical drum.

A flame shoots into the drum, drying and heating the mix of aggregates. The plant is fired by a burner fueled by home heating oil. When producing pavement, the plant burns about 150 gallons of oil an hour. Two gallons of heating oil is required to produce a ton of asphalt.

Gellerson said a bag house, which is located above the plant, captures all the dust in the plant’s manufacturing process. The bag house is a separate compartment containing 364 cloth bags. Acting like a vacuum cleaner, the bags pulse, sucking in air. Collected dust is recycled back into the drum. “Those fine particles are an important part to the finished product,” Gellerson said.

A secondary drum at the Commercial Paving Company is where the liquid asphalt cement is added to the mix. The liquid is stored in a 30,000-gallon tank. The product, which is 300 degrees, is trucked hot from the Portland waterfront, where it arrives by barge. Commercial Paving maintains the temperature of the liquid.

The liquid asphalt costs $350 a ton now and about one ton is needed to produce 20 tons of finished product.

The finished product, which is 300-325 degrees, rides up a slat conveyor to two 75-ton silos. Trucks drive onto weigh scales under the silos to load. Driver Ron LaChance of Old Orchard Beach, who has worked for Shaw Brothers Company eight years, pulled up a big dump truck Thursday for a five-ton load destined for a utility jobsite in Portland.

“I know there’s no health danger to it or I wouldn’t be sitting here,” LaChance said.

Gellerson said a driveway mix sells for $49 a ton, which is up from $36 two years ago. The liquid asphalt cement is one ton of pavement costs $17.50. “The price is petroleum driven,” Gellerson said.

The 1988 model asphalt plant at Commercial Paving is similar but smaller than the one Shaw Brothers Construction, Inc., is proposing for Gorham. Pavement produced at the Scarborough plant can’t meet the specifications to produce “superpave,” required in federal projects. “This plant isn’t sophisticated enough to make superpave,” Gellerson said./////This just sort of trails off. You need a stronger ending./////