PORTLAND, Ore. – Air monitoring found high levels of heavy metals near Precision Castparts, a metal parts manufacturer in Southeast Portland, the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality announced Friday.
The news follows Gov. Kate Brown’s cease and desist order to Bullseye Glass. The Southeast Portland company was ordered to stop using hazardous heavy metals in uncontrolled furnaces for 10 days, after unhealthy levels of lead were found at a nearby day care center.
At Precision Castparts, the levels of nickel, hexavalent chromium and arsenic were found to be between 1.2 and four times over the ambient benchmark levels set by the DEQ.
Oregon Health Authority officials said while the levels are high, they are not an immediate health threat and people living nearby don’t need to take special precautions.
In late March, three air quality monitors were set up at Southeast 45th Avenue and Southeast Harney Drive, northwest of Precision Castparts.
The data released Friday came from a 35-day test from one of the three monitors, from March 30 to May 4. It is the first test result released after the monitors were installed.
Updates from the other two monitors are expected by mid-June.
According to the DEQ, Precision Castparts voluntarily installed additional pollution control devices, including four HEPA filters and one baghouse filter, on May 16. That adds to two HEPA filters and 32 baghouses already at the company.
On Friday Afternoon: Precision Castparts released the following statement:
PCC Structurals has received the monitoring information from DEQ and OHA and is in the process of evaluating those data. We note that the arsenic concentration falls within the urban background level which is consistent with the fact that PCC Structurals does not use arsenic in its metal alloys. We will discuss the hexavalent chromium and nickel concentrations at our community meeting on May 25, after we have had an opportunity to review the detailed underlying data.
