Nasal Assault
​Residents in a neighborhood north of the Quonset Business Park say heavy, noxious odors began shortly after an asphalt plant began operations in December – and they’re concerned it’s going to get worse outside of their homes when the facility ramps up operations this spring. Jim Hummel has their story – and a response from Quonset officials and the company that is leasing the plant.
NORTH KINGSTOWN – Some people living north of the Quonset Business Park say heavy, noxious odors began infiltrating their neighborhood shortly after an asphalt plant began operations in December – and they’re concerned it’s going to get worse when the facility ramps up operations this spring.
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“The smell punches you in the face,” said Vanessa Mascaro, who lives a mile north of the facility. “Sometimes it feels like it’s taking over your lungs You have to shut the door, you can’t go outside. It’s gross,” she added.
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“It smells like chemicals burning,” said Alyssa Knapp, who lives across the street from Mascaro.
Planning for the operation – described as an “asphalt transloading facility” – began two years ago when Bitumar, a Canadian-based company, approached the Quonset Development Corporation about bringing in liquid asphalt by rail and sea.
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Steven J. King, Quonset’s managing director and CEO, told The Hummel Report this week that construction around the port of Davisville needs to be completed before asphalt can be delivered by ship. So QDC signed a four-year lease with Bitumar to have the product arrive by rail, on the old Providence-Worcester line at a site several miles inland.
The asphalt, which arrives by train in solid form, is heated to a temperature where it can be loaded on trucks and transported to paving sites. In its application to QDC’s Technical Review Committee, Bitumar wrote that the Facility would be operated by Ponderosa Solutions, of Colorado.
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“Operations consist of receiving asphalt by railcars and transfer product to mobile tanks or trucks.
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Railcars will be heated by a steam generator and mobile tanks heated by a circulation of hot oil. Incoming asphalt could be modified by adding an additive and end product will be shipped by tankers through a loading ramp,” the company wrote in its application.
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King said he’s received eight complaints about odors since the plant came online in December, some from the same person.
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“We have always been a good neighbor to North Kingstown; we’ve worked really hard to make the transition from the edges and the perimeters of the industrial park friendly to the town and we will continue to do so,” King said.
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He added: “We’re…surprised by the odor because this is a sealed situation where they connect piping from the rail cars to the trucks and there really shouldn’t be any atmospheric release of gases that create odors. That’s why we really have to pinpoint this source.”
​The Quonset Development Corporation was formed two decades ago and has attracted 260 companies, creating more than 15,000 full- and part-time jobs. Its 3,200-acre footprint is the size of the town of North Providence.
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The Bitumar plant is located on several acres on the west side of the park, just off Davisville Road, with a densely populated neighborhood where Mascaro and Knapp live just north of Route 403.
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But The Hummel Report has heard from other North Kingstown residents – some several miles north, and one who lives 2 ½ miles to the southeast, about an asphalt smell.
Mascaro said she approached the town after learning about Bitumar’s plans and later requested information about the lease and plant operations from QDC. “We were told there would be no odors, there would be nothing wrong,” she said in an interview with The Hummel Report.
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“I’m constantly hearing about the Act on Climate, and all of these initiatives and all of these goals that we have,” Mascaro added. “Meanwhile our state approved this, which has huge environmental impacts. On top of that, it has impact on the residents. And no one seems (to care) because there’s a ton of money involved.”
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Mascaro and Knapp say the smell - which they describe as “burning chemicals” – shows up at night and early morning. Knapp has lived in her home for a decade, Mascaro for five years and neither has reported asphalt odors before this – even though Quonset is home to another asphalt plant half a mile southeast of Bitumar’s.
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In 2017 The Hummel Report chronicled Thomas Miozzi moving his asphalt plant, located adjacent to a residential neighborhood in Coventry, 15 miles south into the Quonset Business Park. That allowed him to operate 24 hours a day, away from homes. Miozzi sold the plant three years ago to Peckham Industries.
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Knapp and Mascaro both said they have not smelled asphalt odors prior to December.
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Knapp said her house is just around the corner from the North Kingstown transfer station. “In the summer it stinks, but I’ve never complained about it. With this plant, it’s a chemical smell. I was at the gym a couple of miles away and it reeked. It’s alarming.”
​​QDC’s King said: “We encourage the person to contact (the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management) to have them evaluate the situation. I’ve had my staff visit the site and we have not been able to corroborate that this terminal is the cause of the odor that’s in the complaint.”
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King acknowledged the QDC staff member did not visit the neighborhood at night, when residents say the smell is strongest. He pledges to do that when the plant begins operations again in the spring; it is not running right now in the cold weather.
So where does the DEM fit in?
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Ponderosa secured permits from DEM for spill prevention, but after an email exchange in late 2023 with the David DelSesto, deputy administrator for the Office of Air Quality, learned it was not required to receive an air permit, based Ponderosa’s description of the operation.
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Sean Lett, a vice president for Ponderosa, told DelSesto on Dec. 18 that the company would have six or seven cars at a time hooking into a boiler that would be used to liquify the hardened asphalt in each car. “Once the temperature reaches around 260F we will pump the oil through a heat exchanger to bump the temp up to 315F and transfer to the truck.”
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He added that the average heating time was 24 to 36 hours, and that “our heating and transferring process gives off very little emissions.” He estimated that 440 rail cars would be processed annually.
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Coupled with Lett’s assurance that there would be no storage of the heated material on site, DelSesto wrote back that he did not see any need for air permitting.
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DelSesto told The Hummel Report it will address complaints as they come in on an individual basis.
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Alexandre Rouleau, Bitumar’s director of Environment, Health and Safety said via email: “The terminal referenced was operational only from Dec. 1 to Dec. 19, 2025 and there has been no activity since that time. As a result, any complaint or activity alleged outside of that period would not be attributable to our operations.”
Rouleau added: “We have not received any direct complaints related to this terminal; if any are raised, we (will) address them promptly.”
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King said: “We haven’t been able to pinpoint which place the odor is coming from. But I’m sure we will when they get back in operation in the spring. We’ll work with the company. I have no reason to believe the company is not going to be responsive to these complaints and solve the issues.”
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Knapp is wary about what will happen when warmer weather arrives.
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“I don’t want to live near that (stuff). This is the winter, what’s it going to smell like in the summer?”
The Hummel Report is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that relies, in part, on donations. For more information, go to HummelReport.org. Reach Jim at Jim@HummelReport.org.