Return to the National Citizens Cement Kiln Coalition Home Page

KANSAS | MISSOURI | MICHIGAN | TEXAS | OKLAHOMA | NEBRASKA

KANSAS
 

ASH GROVE CEMENT: After over a decade the USEPA expedited the first Part B permit for cement plants to this Ash Grove waste burner in Chanute, Kansas. Unfortunately, they chose one of the poorest performing facilities in that genre to be the "poster boy" for Region 7 BIF's seeking Part B's. In Region 7, over 40% of the nation's off-site waste is burned as "supplemental fuel", most sited on the banks of the Mississippi in fragile ecology zones.

The Chanute permit attests to EPA's incestuous relationship with the waste-burning cartel. The permit is garbage. Most of the comments and issuances provided by citizens and the incineration industry were ignored.

NCA representatives attended the public comment hearings in Chanute. In Ash Grove's Part B permit, were glaring deficiencies in heavy-metals controls, no dioxin limitations, no mercury limitations, and a flawed risk-assessment among other problems, like, background and non-attainment...there are two other waste-burning cement plants, and a haz-waste incinerator in close proximity to the Chanute plant. Lots of cancer among the young.

When Region 7 EPA approved the permit in Chanute, NCA, Sierra Club, and industry groups responded with an appeal before the federal Environmental Appeals Board. This situation is pending. For now the permit is stopped until it is reviewed by the appropriate federal agencies..

Why such a poor performer? Why Ash Grove in Chanute for the first Part B? For the rest of the country, the implications are ominous. If the Chanute permit withstands the appeal process, and is issued as written, all other final permits granted to BIF's will look good by comparison. The Ash Grove permit is a blatant contradiction of Carol Browners Waste-Minimization and Combustion Strategy and casts a derogatory pall over the entire federal RCRA program.

The environmental community should be outraged by the Chanute permit and should write Administrator Browner in protest because of the irreversible watershed effect this could have on all pending cement and aggregate Part B's .

Return to top of page.

MISSOURI
 

After all, Missouri burns more waste in cement kilns than any other state. Cement kilns are "dioxin machines" because of the organic raw-material they use to make clinker. The Missouri environmental community seems to be ignoring this major source of dioxin as they focus on high-profile issues like the not yet built Times Beach Incinerator, which won't emit a fraction of the deluge of dioxin that is ongoing and injected daily into sensitive watersheds by the four waste-burning Missouri cement plants on the banks of the Mississippi, in Festus, Hannibal, Cape Girardeau, and Clarksville.

Return to top of page.

MICHIGAN

ALPENA: The French-owned Lafarge Corporation cement plant is again out of compliance with the BIF regulations. A recent EPA inspection of the facility revealed that Lafarge is in violation of it's Consent Judgement signed in November of 1994 in federal court in Bay City, MI.

The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) has the enforcement lead on BIF facilities in the state. The Consent Judgement was a sweet-heart deal for the giant foreign conglomerate as they successfully negotiated an impending $22 million dollars in fines and penalties down to a paltry $1.3 million with half of that mitigated away for construction projects.

Lafarge is also in violation of their state air-use permits and has been paying $4000.00 a day in fines for over a month for HCL exceedances. These daily fines are ongoing and the MDEQ is said to be ready to announce another $315,000 dollars in penalties.

The Huron Environmental Actvist League (HEAL) sued the Lafarge Corporation and the MDEQ Director, Russell J. Harding on Dec. 1, 1995. The suit filed under MEPA, the Michigan Environmental Protection Act, is scheduled to be heard in Ingham County District Court in February of 97'.

Lafarge has turned the almost century-old plant, acquired by Lafarge in a leveraged buy-out in 1985, into the largest off-site hazardous waste incinerator in the state. To escape Tier III, CO and THC emissions exceedances, which would have caused the company to get out of the waste business, Lafarge is using Canadian fly-ash and iron ore tailings instead of shale and limestone to make cement. They are being paid to take these alternate materials.

Burning waste with waste. It's inescapable, the cement from this facility must be carrying an outrageous amount of heavy metals and other nasty stuff.

In 1988, Lafarge received and burned 22,000 pounds of illegal organo-mercuric fungicide brought in from a blender in New York state. It was calculated that as much as 2500 lbs of pure mercury went up the stack over a three day period. There were no fines or penalties. The MDEQ did nothing.

A European Cartel member, Lafarge has been cited for over 80 violations of state and federal regulations since the BIF rules were promulgated in 1991...blocks from homes, schools, playgrounds and churches and on the shores of Lake Huron....and they still don't have it right. So much for their propaganda boasting Best technology/Best management practices.

SYSTECH, Inc., the wholly owned hazardous-waste fuel-blending subsidiary of Lafarge is seeking DEQ permits to become a full TSD blending facility in ALPENA. Systech also was cited recently for violations and information on these are being FOIA'ed by HEAL and will be posted on this page.

ALSO IN MICHIGAN: The Swiss-owned Holnam cement plant in Dundee, MI, has applied for a state permit to burn tires. The trial burns are to be conducted this month. NCA will try to help this community organize to oversee this development and then empower the citizens to stave off any move by Holnam to take the next step...hazardous waste incineration.

Return to top of page.

TEXAS

MIDLOTHIAN: Texas Industries (TXI) lost a round to the Texas State PTA. TXI in Midlothian is the largest waste burning cement operation in the country. TXI has been a formidable adversary to the grassroots environmental group, Downwinders at Risk (DAR).

A few weeks ago, in late November, at the Texas state PTA convention in San Antonio, over 1600 delegates voted overwhelmingly endorsing a resolution and legislative positions calling for waste and tire-burning cement plants to meet at least the same environmental and health standards as specialized incinerators and mandating labels on their products warning consumers of waste residues.

This was a hard fought battle and the credit goes to Sue Pope, a Downwinders member, PTA member, and veteran activist in the fight against these mega-polluters. Sue owns a horse farm downwind of the TXI facility in Midlothian and has first-hand knowledge of the effects of toxic stack emissions from the TXI facility. Another veteran activist and community organizer, Jim Schermbeck, from Cedar Hill and Dallas was also a key player in this victory for common sense over dysfunctional regulatory agencies driven by powerful special interests.

The American Lung Association of Texas joined the Texas PTA in endorsing these resolutions.

TXI sits in the middle of petro-chemical country and provides cheap under-regulated toxic-chemical disposal to oil and chemical companies in Texas. The Chemical Manufacturing Association (CMA) has worked hard behind the scene on TXI's behalf.

TXI is seeking permits to burn 100% haz-waste in their kilns, and it looks as if the Texas Natural Resources Commission (TNRCC), the permitting entity in Texas, is going to let them do it in the face of much citizen opposition and evidence of human health and environmental degradation.

ALSO IN TEXAS: Cement plants in Texas are engaged in a tire-burning orgy. Facilities in Odessa, San Antonio, Hunter, Buda, New Braunfels, and Midlothian burn tires in their kilns.

Dr. Neil Carman, with the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club based in Austin, is working to educated citizens in these communities.

Return to top of page.

OKLAHOMA

ADA: The local Swiss-owned Holnam facility has submitted an application requesting permits to burn plastics, wood, paper, rubber, polymer, pharmaceutical, grease, and waste oils, water-based inks, and other such "special wastes". the facility recently began burning tire-derived fuels.

In 1994, Marti Sinclair and her grassroots group, Adans for a Clean Environment (ACE), were successful in stopping Holnam's interim hazardous waste-burning permits. By signing on to a Citizens Suit challenging EPA's attempt to grant this status illegally, it looked as though Holnam would have to look elsewhere to pollute.

These latest permit requests show that Holnam didn't come to Ada to make cement, but instead to turn this Oklahoma city into a major disposal terminal.

Return to top of page.

NEBRASKA

LOUISVILLE: Soon after the local environmental group in this rural Nebraska farming community started nosing around the Ash Grove waste-burning cement plant, the company announced that it was getting out of the waste business. Typically, once citizens begin to shine the light of day on these facilities, they go into panic mode.

ENACT conducted file searches in Region 7's Kansas City EPA offices which revealed that Ash Grove had a dismal compliance record and Region 7 didn't seem to have a problem with it. But now that the facts are out in the open, EPA has tagged Ash Grove with $220,000 in fines and penalties. The fine was mitigated down from a calculated $1.3 million, a sweetheart deal for a company that polluted the hell out of the Nebraskan countryside without having to worry about pesky regulators hanging around to make them toe the line.

The Ash Grove violations include improper manifesting of rail-car shipments of haz-waste, improper storage of waste, inadequate waste-analysis plan, inadequate analysis of waste prior to incineration, and failure to maintain complete and adequate operating records.

In other words: This facility operated in a criminal manner, concealed what and how much they were burning from regulators and the citizens. It will be next to impossible to quantify the mayhem wrought on the people and the environment surrounding this facility.

Now, Region 7 EPA is poised to add insult to injury by allowing Ash Grove to leave behind a huge mountain of hazardous waste-derived cement dust, uncovered and unconditioned, free to blow all over the countryside. ENACT is protesting this move by Region 7.

Return to top of page.

Return to the National Citizens Cement Kiln Coalition Home Page