Neighbors react after Milwhite Inc. announces closure

BROWNSVILLE, Texas (ValleyCentral) — Residents who live right behind Milwhite Incorporated spoke with ValleyCentral about the recent settlement.

They say it was a long time coming and look forward to being able to breathe fresh air once again.

Over the weekend, Milwhite Incorporated and the victims went into mediation. They agreed that no money would be exchanged if the business would stop all operations.

Neighbor Jojo De La Fuente says he used to worry about breathing in the dust daily and worried about his family’s health. He also collects cars and says he would have to clean them several times a week due to the dust.

“We're actually ecstatic about it because we're not you just look at the cars," De la Fuente said. "They have dust every two or three days, a layer of dust. Imagine what we're breathing. Our kids are breathing. And this is one thing I really believe. It was up north, we wouldn't be having this issue. They would have shut it down right away. But since we're down here, a poor demographic.”

Another neighbor, Mike Iracheta, said he worried about his children's health and that of his neighbors.

“That’s really good and taking ownership of their responsibility of what they were doing because all the people around here, and the community, families, and kids that want to play and stuff like that, not knowing what was going on kept and prevented them from enjoying life and being out here," Iracheta said.

He further says his children would often complain about their eyes burning and would be sneezing constantly because of the dust.

Iracheta says the dust was the worst during the afternoon, made it hard to see and always smelled like smoke outside.

He looks forward to soon spending time with his family outdoors.

Milwhite Incorporated will officially shut down operations on November 27. The company will operate for only limited hours until the shutdown is complete.