Irvine Neighborhood Raises Stink Over Asphalt Plant
The smell of burnt rubber and worries over air pollution are keeping some residents up at night in neighborhoods surrounding an asphalt-mixing plant in Irvine, California. The air, they say, is so foul they have to close their windows.
At a community meeting led by the South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD) on Dec. 9, more than a dozen residents demanded answers from a panel of air quality experts and enforcement officials.
The culprit is All American Asphalt, a paving company whose hot mix and batch plant has been in the same location on Jeffrey Road for nearly 30 years, long before Orchard Hills and nearby residential areas existed. But since February 2019, AQMD has received 834 complaints about the nocturnal stench.