DownwindersAtRisk-Cement Kilns Dirty Little Secret

Cement Kilns: The Dirty Little Secret

More than 142 million Americans live in areas where lung-scorching air pollution puts their lives at risk everyday.

This is especially a concern for children. Since kids breathe more of these powerful respiratory irritants than adults, they are more susceptible to the side effects: asthma, chronic lung-disease, and even cancer.

The culprit is fine soot particles. And an often-overlooked villain is the cement industry.

While there's been a national push to reign in pollution sources from cars, diesel engines, power plants, and refineries, there's been very little effort to address pollution coming from cement kilns.

In one sleepy little town just south of Dallas, and just east of Fort Worth, there's a debate taking place over three huge cement kilns: Texas Industries (TXI), Holcim Cement, and North Texas Cement.

The largest of these sources burns both hazardous waste and tire; the other two burn "only" tires. These three sources pump out close to one-third of all the industrial smog in North Texas. The remaining two-thirds come from 400 facilities. The amount of pollution from these three cement plants is staggering.

Texas isn't the only state facing these problems. In New York, a controversy is raging over whether a Holcim subsidiary, St. Lawrence Cement, should be allowed to build a massive new coal-fired plant in the Hudson Valley. The EPA, like the plant's opponents, has concluded that this proposal fails to consider truly state-of-the-art technology.

But the cement industry isn't really committed to better technology. It's only committed to bigger profits. In New York and Texas alike, "air huggers" are attacked for demanding technologies which the industry claims are "unfeasible" and "untested." But companies like Holcim conveniently ignore practices in use by their overseas partners, and in some cases at their own plants.

The Midlothian experience is a perfect case in point. In the late 90s, Holcim asked Texas regulators for a major change their permit--the document which outlines allowable pollution levels. Holcim promised North Texans that if it was allowed to change its permit to double cement production, that it would actually decrease emissions.

That was a promise made, and a promise broken.

After three years of trying to reach the goals of its agreement, Holcim finally had to admit defeat. The facility was not only unable to reach the reductions it promised--in fact, it was pumping out three times more tha they had promised.

In response, Texas' environmental agency fined Holcim $223,125. That's a big fine by Texas standards, but it's the equivalent of you or me getting a parking ticket.

And then, the State gave Holcim another year-and-a-half to figure it all out.

Simply put: Holcim broke their agreement and the law. They reneged on a formal review process. They belched more smog forming pollution into North Texas. And what did they get? A slap-on-the-wrist fine, and an 18-month grace period. Meanwhile, everyone still breathing in North Texas continues to suffer.

By the way, this wasn't the first time that Holcim's Midlothian plant had been fined. In 1993, the plant paid $135,000 for emiting . What's a few hundred thousand dollars every 10 years to Holcim? Nothing. They're laughing all the way to the bank.

In sum, both Holcim and the State of Texas are guilty of allowing an inferior cement plant to be built by a major industrial polluter with an awful track record.

While all this was going on, a subsidiary of Holcim made its way to another little sleepy town, with a similar scheme in mind. Near the Hudson Rive in New York State, St. Lawrence Cement is seeking to build a coal-fired plant permitted to emit up to 20 million pounds of regulated pollutants every year.

In an attempt to sway public officials, St. Lawrence brought the good folks from Hudson to Midlothian to see how they do things in the South. Like their Texas counterparts, St. Lawrence Cement is promising jobs, economic development, and cleaner air. But when the news came out about the Midlothian fine, suddenly SLC is pretending they had nothing to do with Holcim.