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Another TNRCC B.A.C.T.
Bungle
BACT stands for Best Available Control Technology. It’s whatever the best
existing pollution control system is for any industry. When one of
Midlothian’s cement plants applies for a new permit, the TNRCC is supposed
to make sure this standard is being met.
Only it hasn’t. It goofed when it ignored a Michigan plant with scrubbers
during TXI’s hazardous waste permit hearings in the late 90’s. And it goofed
again with both the new Holcim and TXI plants being built.
According to an October 2000 TNRCC memo received as part of a
Downwinders’ Open Records Act request, the TNRCC contracted out the BACT
reviews of Holcim and TXI’s plants to a private company. The contractor
ignored at least 18 European cement plants using advanced SNCR - Selective
Non catalytic Reduction - pollution control equipment that’s
reducing emission of Nitrogen Oxide and other pollutants by 80%.
Instead, it wrongly concluded that both TXI and Holcim were using
state-of-the-art designs, resulting in many more tons of pollution emitted. |
