Unacceptable
On Monday, the Obama Administration announced that it was re-writing new pollution rules for cement plant pollution on the eve of their implementation, including delaying compliance by two years, almost doubling the soot pollution standard, and giving up trying to monitor that pollution in real time.
This is an unacceptable rollback in emission rules that Downwinders and is supporters have been fighting for since the mid-1990's and we must organize now to show the EPA they have no popular support at all.
North Texas is one of the regions that will be most affected by EPA's retreat. Midlothian hosts the largest concentration of cement plants in the US, with three huge plants owned by TXI, Holcim, and Ash Grove operating a total six kilns, or furnaces within a few miles of each other. All three have permits to burn used tires and other industrial waste besides coal. They are the largest stationary sources of air pollution in North Texas, emitting hundreds of thousands of tons annually.
Finalized in August 2010, and on the eve of being made into law with a deadline of 2013 to comply, the new EPA emission rules were projected to prevent between 960 and 2,500 premature deaths, 1,500 non-fatal heart attacks, and 17,000 cases of aggravated asthma EVERY YEAR.
By EPA's own estimate, the two-year delay until 2015 would cause between 1,920 and 5,000 avoidable deaths, 3,000 non-fatal heart attacks, and 34,000 cases of aggravated asthma. Since we have more cement plant capacity than any other part of he country, we'll probalby be absorbing a disproprotional share of that harm.
The delay in compliance from 2013 to 2015 is bad enough, but the EPA is also proposing to raise the Particulate Matter emissions rate for existing plants from .04 pounds of manufactured cement to .07 and it's scrapping requirements to monitor PM pollution in real time and instead substituting a controlled test burn every three years.
PM is used as a surrogate for toxic metals like Mercury, Lead and Cadmium. It's one of the most insidious and dangerous pollutants there are. The EPA just lowered the national ambient air standard for PM pollution based on the medical literature linking even very low levels of the pollution to a variety of health effects, including heart attacks, strokes and brain damage.
EPA has given cement plants a free pass – with only one test every three years to prove they're meeting a daily standard. This is like trying to control speedy drivers with a radar gun test every three years – and you know exactly where and when the radar gun will be pointing at you.
Concurrent with the EPA's announced plan to weaken and delay its clean air standards for cement plants, the agency also announced that a variety of industrial wastes such as tires, treated wood, plastic and chemical solvents do not meet the agency's new definition of "solid waste." That will mean cement plants like those in Midlothian can burn these kinds of industrial wastes without having to meet more stringent requirements under the Clean Air Act that were designed to limit the additional amount of dangerous pollution that results from their incineration.
The EPA issued the proposed changes under a court settlement with the Portland Cement Association. However, that case was decided more than six months ago in a unanimous decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Nothing in the Court's decision requires that the agency's rules for cement plants must be weakened or delayed in any way. Numerous attempts by industry lobbyists to weaken and delay the rules in Congress were ultimately voted down. After two decades of trying to get the EPA to follow the Clean Air Act, citizens thought they had overcome their final hurdle.
What the cement industry, radical House Republicans, and the courts could not do over the last two decades, EPA is trying to accomplish on its own just as this proposal was about to be implemented.
This is what makes these changes so senseless. EPA seems to be going out of its way to kowtow to the cement industry when it doesn't have to, and when the vast majority of citizens over the last 20 years have urged it not to. Many of you will remember that one of only three national hearings on the rule in September 2009 took place at the DFW Airport Hotel and drew over 200 people. Every speaker, save for less than a half dozen industry representatives, were supportive of strong emission limits for cement plants.
Downwinders at Risk was one of the original plaintiffs that went to court in the 1990's and early 2000's to challenge weak Clinton Administration rules for cement plants that were eventually overturned. It's been a major force in rallying public support for better regulation of cement plant pollution since its founding in 1994. And we're not stopping now.
Please send comments to EPA on these new rules. Click and submit the prepared comments we have at our website, or write your own using the same click and comment tool, but please make sure your voice is added to the thousands of others that we need to send EPA a strong message of disapproval. EPA is hoping this is a niche issue that you don't care about. Please prove them wrong.