Smells, noises from Carlisle brake company bothers some nearby residents 

A “solvent” smell and “stamping” noise emanating from a manufacturing plant on East Hillside Drive has neighbors looking to both the company and the city for answers.

One Bloomington resident said many of her daily dog walks have been marred by an unpleasant odor coming from the Carlisle Industrial Brake & Fraction factory for over a year, while another man said the peace of his nights has been interrupted by a loud mechanical sound from the plant two weekends in a row. City officials, meanwhile, say Carlisle representatives chalk up the smell to by-products of the manufacturing processes and the noise to an equipment malfunction that is being corrected.

Carlisle representatives did not return several messages left at the factory this week inquiring about the issues in question.

Ruth Newton, who lives directly across from the plant on South Woodlawn Avenue, said that many days she’ll go outside with her dog at about 11:30 a.m. and be met with an unpleasant odor that she describes as smelling like “solvent,” which usually lasts for about two to three hours at a time. Newton, who has lived in her home for about 50 years, believes the smell started about a year and a half ago when the company first started making brakes for wind turbines.

“It used to be such a good factory when it just did brakes, we heard nothing and smelled nothing and it was just great,” she said. “This all came about when they started making these wind turbine brakes.” Newton said she and about 25 of her neighbors recently signed a petition asking Carlisle to do something about the smell, which they turned over to Councilman Tim Mayer. Mayer said Tuesday he hadn’t given the petition to Carlisle yet, but that he and three city officials toured the plant this spring and talked with representatives about the smell issue, which at the time was chalked up to paint smells created during a remodeling process.

Adam Wason, the city’s assistant director of economic development for small business and sustainable development, said company officials have since said that in the mechanical processes of the production facilities “there might be some off-putting smells, but nothing harmful, nothing toxic.” Wason said the company’s dust collectors and air quality control units are regularly inspected by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management and that it has always been in full compliance with its permits.

Meanwhile, Russ Bridenbaugh, who lives in an apartment on South Woodlawn Avenue, said noise coming from the plant has been an ongoing problem for about a year but it was usually confined to the daytime. However, in the last two weeks a loud crashing noise has started Friday at about 9 p.m. and lasted for 12 to 48 hours each time.

Bridenbaugh described the noise as: “Bang! A pause of 20 seconds, bang! For 48 hours. It’s unconscionable.” Wason said plant officials told him that the noise comes from a malfunctioning piece of equipment that operates on an automatic cycle that begins Friday evenings, but that equipment has been shut off until replacement parts needed to repair it arrive.

Both Bridenbaugh and Newton also complained of a lack of responsiveness from the company, with Newton noting that her calls have gone unreturned while Bridenbaugh said a phone number he was given to call if the stamping noise started up again led to nothing more than a series of recordings.

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