Blue Smoke Control Helps BoDean Plant Become “Invisible”
Bill Williams, General Manager of BoDean Company, Santa Rosa, California doesn’t claim to be a magician. Yet, his efforts to make his firm’s asphalt operation disappear environmentally would impress even master illusionists. He doesn’t work with conjurer’s tricks. He works with innovations that create a smaller and smaller environmental footprint for his hot mix Asphalt Plant in urban Santa Rosa, California.
Bill’s mantra, “We’re Working to Become Invisible (Environmentally)” has definitely roused the support of not just the company’s firmly committed ownership, management and 40+ employees. He’s also made believers within the surrounding community, local government, environmental agencies and staunch environmentalists.
As General Manager of the BoDean Company, Bill has the full support of owners Belinda (Bo) and Dean Soiland. Joining the company in 2002, Bill brought with him a devout passion for corporate environmental responsibility. Along with the Soilands, their inspired leadership and consciousness of community-minded, globally-concerned “green” thinking/action has rubbed off on the entire organization, resulting in a total company commitment to installing innovations and operating the plant in ways that could make invisibility possible. Beautiful landscaping. Absence of odor. Quiet. Blue skies. Waterfalls. Birds nesting in palm trees. “We’re not fully there yet, but you can see the investment paying off in every aspect of the plant,” says Williams.
What comes to mind is: “Asphalt Park, not Asphalt Plant.”
A History of Becoming Environmentally Friendlier. In 2001, Dean Soiland acquired the operations of this old Kaiser/Hanson asphalt plant, operating since the 1960’s. This was Dean’s first asphalt venture. His roots are in the sand and gravel mining industry working with his father before acquiring the Mark West Quarry, near Calistoga, CA, in 1989. That plant had operated since the early 1900’s. At Mark West, he built a state-of-the-art wash plant that became highly recognized for being sustainable and environmentally-responsible. He expanded in 1997, acquiring Blue Rock Quarry in Forestville, CA.
To Be Environmentally ‘Invisible’ You Have to Literally Disappear…
No Offensive Sounds, No Smells, No Blue Smoke.
— Bill Williams, General Manager, BoDean Company
At BoDean Company, great pains have been made to beautify, use less energy and be an example of “green” thinking and action. Solar energy installed at its quarry operation has reduced the electrical bill by thousands each month. Strategic grading and paving of the asphalt plant’s materials storage area has resulted in drier material that consumes far less energy when processed into asphalt. Professional landscaping and placement of the materials storage piles has made their plant almost disappear from an outsider’s view.
Environmental Challenges. In 2009, BoDean filed a plan to expand the asphalt plant’s storage capacity by adding three new silos. “This upgrade would ultimately reduce and seek to eliminate the impact on the community by allowing us to store the mixes that we made during the day to reduce nighttime noise associated with production,” Bill explains. Some local citizens attempted to stop the new additions, placing BoDean in the center of community and environmental controversy for several years. “There was some confusion about why we were adding silos. They thought more silos meant more production, more pollution and more noise. Some concerned citizens honestly thought that we were intending to increase production,” says Bill, “which slowed, and complicated, the permitting process.”
Resolution and Accord. After many hearings and back-and-forth discussions, BoDean was able to fully clarify the benefits of the company’s plan to minimize nighttime production through this expansion. Finally, BoDean could then go forward with adding the new silos, with newly-imposed limits on production. In addition, the air district required that BoDean install filtration systems to capture and minimize emissions.
BoDean Company had already recognized that their first, and ongoing, priority needed to be reaching common ground with the surrounding business, residential and city leaders as well as environmental agencies, and work with their expectations and requirements. According to Bill, “While there are standards, policies and codes mandating specific compliance as a business and environmentally, there are many emotional and personal considerations at play in achieving good neighbor status.” We made up our minds that we didn’t just want to comply. We wanted to be active, concerned participants in this community. While tackling these issues has been difficult, and expensive,” Bill believes, “it made our entire company better at understanding and doing what we had to do to be a positive contributor to our community and to our planet – today AND 50 years from now.”
Eliminating the Blue Smoke. A core technological advance toward a smaller environmental impact was achieved with the use of Blue Smoke Control Systems that were designed, engineered and installed by the Blue Smoke Control Division of Butler-Justice, Inc., headquartered in Anaheim, California.
Blue Smoke Control Division applies its patented technology to remove over 95% of the blue smoke emissions generated in BoDean’s production and handling of asphalt products. According to Mike Butler, president of Butler-Justice, “we have the only system that removes up to 99.9% of the suspended particles of the suspended droplets within the blue haze associated with the asphalt production process. The addition of RAP, Rubberized Asphalt and Polymer Blends will increase emissions due to higher mixing temperatures.” Mike explains, “when you remove the blue smoke, you also significantly reduce the characteristic odor associated with asphalt production.”
“We worked extremely hard on a uniquely engineered design at BoDean to provide the highest standards of asphalt pollution control while achieving a reasonable initial investment cost and economical operational and maintenance expenses,” he says.
The Blue Smoke Collectors. BoDean uses two Blue Smoke collection units coupled with a well-designed ducting system installed throughout its plant. The batch plant is controlled by the Blue Smoke Control Model 6-S12-C 24,000 cfm collector. The four 300-ton silos are vented to a Model 6-S20-C 40,000 cfm collector. Ducting was installed by Butler-Justice at (1) top of silos, (2) drag slat conveyor transfer points and (3) truck load out areas. These are the key points required to assure that only clean air escapes the plant. The ducting feeds two collectors that process the air until it is virtually 100% clean of blue smoke haze.
Each collector features seven stages of filtration, with the final high-efficiency filter being 95% efficient at capturing particles as small as .03 microns (equivalent to HEPA quality). Because blue smoke is a vapor at high temperatures, Butler-Justice engineered BoDean’s ducting systems to effectively incorporate the infusion of ambient air at key points to aid in coalescing blue smoke particles into larger droplets that are then filtered out by the Blue Smoke Collector. The collected effluent is drained from the filters incorporating a combination of gravity and a sump. Filters are serviced on a periodic basis in accordance with manufacturer’s recommendations.
According to Mike,
“We believe this BoDean plant is the cleanest plant currently operating anywhere. The final filter is 95% efficient at .3 microns, which is over 30 times more efficient than the Air District’s requirement to control emissions of particulate smaller than 10 microns.”
Williams explains, “BoDean chose this particular system after extensive research. We weren’t looking for short-term solutions or window dressing that we could turn on when the air quality people were here. We wanted to achieve the highest stewardship of our planet and to our community. We set the bar as high as possible.” After talking to other firms successfully using the Butler-Justice Blue Smoke Control System and researching every available technology, Bill is pleased that BoDean chose this particular system because “it not only has received many awards and accolades from air quality districts throughout the United States, including the classification of BACT – Best Available Control Technology – in the Asphalt Industry, it is practical to install and operate, as well as highly efficient and cost-effective.”
“We knew we had to find a way to filter and collect the emitted particles. Each of the technologies we reviewed had shortcomings. Some were cost prohibitive for our high standards. Others were inefficient and created additional problems. The Blue Smoke Control System has proven to be the best solution for total emissions control combined with efficient, affordable ongoing use.”
The BoDean staff is proud of its accomplishments of participating in a cleaner environment. “Employees are eager to show off where they work and what they are doing to beautify the area and operate a clean plant,” according to Bill, “ . . . our efforts have resulted in greater employee satisfaction and retention.”