Concrete recycling operation creates problems for Raleigh Beltline neighbors
.jpg "A conveyor belt moves pulverized concrete into piles at the Western Boulevard interchange with the Raleigh Beltline on Jan. 21, 2023. Nearby residents say the round-the-clock grinding operation creates noise and dust for their neighborhood.")
As contractors tear up and rebuild a four-mile stretch of the Raleigh Beltline, they’re grinding up tons of concrete into smaller bits they can use as fill as they widen the highway.
This form of recycling may be good for the environment, but it has caused problems for people who live near the Western Boulevard interchange where the grinding takes place. The machine hums and rattles nearly 24 hours a day, they say, and produces white dust that covers everything.
“Cars are being covered, houses and porches are covered, and the dust stays in the air,” Chuck Yancey wrote in an email. “At least one nearby resident has asthma and cannot go outside, even with a mask. In addition, the noise is nearly constant.”
Yancey lives on Reavis Road, which dead ends at Lorimer Road, a few dozen yards from the grinding machine. The streets are white with dust, which wafts through a strip of trees separating them from the Beltline.
Rand Thomas, who lives on the corner, said the grinding has been going on for months.
“All night long,” Thomas said recently, as he hosed dust off his cars. “You can’t even sleep.”
The dust is relatively new, Thomas said. For a long time, the machine would turn big chunks of concrete into smaller rocks.
“It used to be bowling-ball-size rocks,” he said. “Now they’re pulverizing it, and they’re turning it into dust.”
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The N.C. Department of Transportation has received complaints about the grinding operation, said spokesman Aaron Moody. He said NCDOT will talk to the contractor about sweeping dust from nearby streets.
“Runoff on projects is typically something controlled at the ground level,” Moody wrote in an email. “This being airborne, we will also be talking to them about opportunities to spray the piles with water or other ways we can keep the dust down.”
As for the din, Moody said the contract allows the work to take place at night, though with limits on noise.
“Our folks plan to take readings in this area to ensure crews are keeping noise within the acceptable limits,” Moody wrote.
Trucks haul large pieces of concrete to the northeast corner of the Western Boulevard interchange with Interstate 440, where the grinding machine turns them into piles of finer material. The Western Boulevard interchange is one of four, along with Wade Avenue, Hillsborough Street and Jones Franklin Road, that are being torn down and rebuilt as part of the widening project.
Work began in late summer 2019 and was to take four years to complete. Several factors, including shortages of workers and materials, have pushed the expected completion date to the fall of 2024.
