There’s blame to go around in Prineville, where homeowners near a wood products manufacturing company are complaining about blowing sawdust. In the end, however, potential home buyers owe it to themselves to look carefully before purchasing a new home next to a manufacturing plant.

Woodgrain Millwork Inc. manufactures door and window components at its plant in Prineville. The mill is an old one, opened in 1959, and the manufacturing process itself generates sawdust, as it has done since the mill began operations. When the wind kicks up, that sawdust can blow, much to the dismay of neighbors.

Yet while the dust is inconvenient, and while its quantity occasionally violates the terms of a state discharge permit, it poses no health problems. It’s a pain, in other words, but it won’t make you sick.

The state’s Department of Environmental Quality, which oversees such things, has cited the company for exceeding its permitted discharge levels and will continue to do so in the future. Woodgrain Millwork, meanwhile, will continue to work to control the dust.

The equipment to do so may be expensive, but the company should comply with all applicable laws.

The conflict might have been avoided had the city of Prineville prevented houses from going up so close to the mill, but there’s nothing to be done about this particular neighborhood now. In the future, however, city leaders would be wise to think twice before allowing a residential neighborhood to be built so close to a factory.

Meanwhile, homeowners must share at least a bit of the blame for their current unhappiness. The mill is not exactly hidden among the trees. Neighbors had to know how close they were to it when they purchased homes there. They had an obligation to check into potential unwanted smells, sounds and, yes, dust before they purchased. Doing so might have changed their view of the neighborhood.

Now, like those who build next to airports, farms and so forth, they’re likely stuck with something they don’t like because they failed to do their homework adequately in the first place.