NEWPORT NEWS — The wind might provide answers to limiting the coal dust released into the air in the Southeast Community.

While the wind sometimes carries the dust from Newport News’ waterfront coal terminals over Interstate 664 into the Southeast Community, the city and Dominion Terminal Associates are in the first stages of looking at whether building a wind fence on the property would be a viable solution.

The Daily Press highlighted the coal dust issue in a July 17 article, taking a comprehensive look at the problem and its solutions. The dust emitted by the coal terminal is far below state air quality standards, according to air testing, but despite the good test results, residents in the Southeast Community still complain about the dust being a nuisance and express concerns about it causing health problems.

Wesley Simon-Parsons, civil and environmental supervisor at Dominion Terminal Associates, said on Friday that the company looked at wind fences several years ago, but is now willing to examine them again to see if technology has improved.

“We’re going to take a second look at it,” Simon-Parsons said.

That was good news to Newport News Mayor McKinley Price, who has been pushing for reductions in the coal dust that comes off of the coal piles.

Price said if it could be determined that a wind fence would significantly reduce dust, the city would “definitely” consider helping to pay for the fence. Extremely rough estimates for a wind fence would be about $3 million to $8 million, according to the president of a company that builds fabric wind fences.

“The city and the community would appreciate anything and everything that can be done to reduce the amount of particulates in the air,” Price said.

The mayor also said he believes reducing dust would improve the chances for development in the Southeast Community.

Improved technology

Simon-Parsons said when the company looked at wind fences several years ago, the fence would have had to be 200 feet tall and “encompass the entire site,” which would have made it too expensive.

But Mike Robinson, president of WeatherSolve a British Columbia, Canada-based company, said the technology has improved in recent years, as has the understanding of wind patterns.

Robinson said that’s resulted in it being less necessary to build towering wind fences, as the fences are now not as high, but still achieve similar reductions in dust.

WeatherSolve designs fabric wind fences for sites around the world.

“The height has become much more manageable,” said Robinson, explaining that now typically the company would build one upwind and one downwind fence.

Simon-Parsons said the coal piles can reach 80 feet high, but some are as low as 10 feet. He said the taller piles usually only reach 80 feet once every couple months, and then quickly reduce in height as the coal is exported.

Robinson said that the fence does not have to be constructed for the tallest pile, and even if it was, improvements in technology would means the fence would now be built at 120 feet, rather than 200 feet. But Robinson said it could make sense to build a fence for the height of most of the piles rather than for the tallest pile, maybe in the 70- to 80-foot high range, and use other methods to control dust for the intermittent times when the piles are higher.

If the city and the company move forward, Robinson said, they would do computer modeling to determine how best to design the fence.

Lambert’s Point

Price said he has often wondered why at the coal pier in Norfolk, the coal is deposited directly onto the ships and barges at Lambert’s Point, rather than stored in coal piles as it is in Newport News.

Robin Chapman, spokesman for Norfolk Southern, which owns the coal terminal and the trains that bring the coal to Norfolk, said they own 225 miles of track on 400 acres, and most, if not all, of the track was in place by the early 1960s. To build one mile of track today would cost about $1 million, Chapman said.

Norfolk Southern and Dominion Terminal export a similar amount of coal.

Meanwhile, Simon-Parsons said there’s about 10 miles of track at Dominion Terminal, the larger of the two companies at the Newport News coal terminal. Kinder Morgan also operates in Newport News.

To build train tracks to emulate Norfolk Southern’s system would cost more than $200 million, and that wouldn’t take into account Kinder Morgan’s property. And Chapman said many more components in addition to new track would have to be constructed to match Norfolk Southern’s system. So the cost to eliminate the coal piles and still operate a coal terminal would be far in excess of $200 million.

“To put in the capital investment would be astronomical to them,” Chapman said.

Chapman said that they haven’t had complaints about coal dust for about 15 years. The train cars are sprayed with chemicals when they leave the coal mines, also minimizing the dust en route.

Simon-Parsons said he believes that some of the cars are sprayed with chemicals, but not all of them, as they make their way from Kentucky and West Virginia to Newport News.

Some Newport News residents have complained about the dust blowing off of the train cars as they pause on the tracks on the way to the Newport News waterfront.