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Pollution in Midlothian, Texas Welcome to Midlothian,
self-proclaimed "Cement Capitol of Texas." But that's too modest. If there's
a higher concentration of cement-making in the world, we want to know it, so
we can reassure ourselves it could always be worse.
Midlothian, located immediately southwest of Dallas, is home to three
separate cement companies and their plants with a total of 11 large kilns,
or furnaces:
Not only that, TXI's Midlothian plant is the largest cement plant in the
entire country and one of the nation's largest burners of hazardous waste.
The other two burn tires. They burn these wastes because they get paid to,
because they get government subsidies to burn them, and because it's cheaper
than buying conventional fuels like natural gas and coal.
Besides the cement plants, Midlothian hosts a variety of heavy industry:
There is TXI-owned Chaparral Steel, one of the nation's 10 largest steel
mills. And, if that weren't enough, the city, Ellis County and TXI are
developing a new Midlothian industrial district called "RailPort," which has
attracted a large natural gas power plant. Then you can throw in the
facilities that are in Midlothian because of the cement plants or Chaparral,
like "Safety Tire" which shreds the tire waste that cement plants use. It's
Midlothian tire yard caught fire a few years back and enveloped a large part
of the DFW area in acrid black smoke.
In fact, the state's own monitoring data shows that the Midlothian plants
are at the center of their own huge bubble of smog-forming pollution that
routinely drifts into large portions of Dallas, Tarrant and Johnson
Counties. And in 2000, the North American Commission for Environmental
Cooperation published a report stating pollution from TXI and other
waste-burning cement plants was traveling all the way to the Arctic Circle
and adversely affecting public health and the environment there.
In sum, the "Midlothian Industrial Complex" is the largest concentration
of heavy industry in north Texas. Its industries account for four of the top
five industrial polluters and almost half of all industrial pollution in the
region. Ellis County regularly boasts a per capita output of toxic releases
that rival many gulf coast counties. It's the dirty secret of DFW. And it
sits directly upwind of the Metroplex most of the year. So don't think
you're not breathing it's pollution.
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