February 2004
State fines
CEMEX $280,000
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By Trevor Hughes
The Daily Times-Call
LYONS — State
regulators have slapped CEMEX with a $280,000 fine after inspectors found
multiple clean-air violations at the cement plant, including a nonexistent
system for controlling dust.
In the 16-page
consent decree signed by the state health department and CEMEX managers and
released Monday, the company agreed to pay the fines but did not admit to
wrongdoing. The company also denied anyone was hurt by any of its actions.
“It’s pocket
change to them, and yet they still refuse to accept any responsibility,” said
Lou Dobbs of the Environmental Justice Project, a group of local residents
skeptical of CEMEX. “Until they can admit their wrongdoing, the trust in the
community will remain at a low ebb.”
Dobbs
lives across the street from the 2,500-acre CEMEX plant.
In addition to
a $132,300 fine, the company must launch a $150,000 “supplemental environmental
project” to develop stronger environmental and public health protections at the
plant on Colo. Highway 66.
As part of that
effort, CEMEX must tell people it violated air-quality laws.
“The report is
just the beginning,” said Richard Cargill, executive director of the St. Vrain
Valley Watchdogs, a group formed to monitor CEMEX. “It’s the beginning of
seeking solutions that go beyond compliance — to have a clean plant because you
want to be a good neighbor.”
Cargill’s
group, along with the Sierra Club and local residents, are fighting CEMEX’s
plans to burn used tires in its kiln.
CEMEX blasts
limestone from a quarry on the north side of Colo. 66, trucks it across the
road, then heats it in a kiln to make cement.
The groups say
CEMEX cannot be trusted to burn tires cleanly if it cannot reliably follow
state clean-air rules.
The state
report said CEMEX, among other findings, failed to adequately control dust
leaking from its A-frame storage building, lied about the pollution-control
equipment on the A-frame, failed to control dust on access roads, and failed to
calculate how much dust was escaping the site. All are requirements of the
plant’s existing permits.
The biggest
violation appears to center on the A-frame storage building, a large structure
the company uses to store limestone needed for making cement.
According to
the state, CEMEX said it used a “baghouse” — an attached room filled with
filtering bags — to control dust coming from the building.
“From April
2001 through August 2003, CEMEX operated the plant’s A-frame without the
required baghouse,” the report said. “On or about June 20, 2003, CEMEX filed an
air pollution emission notice ... (and) identified a baghouse ... as the
pollution control equipment. ... There was no baghouse on the A-frame transfer
point, and had not been such a baghouse for at least two years.”
CEMEX shut down
the A-frame in August under state order and has not reopened it. But that is
also causing problems. Under state regulations, the plant can handle only
180,000 tons of “clinker” or cooked limestone material, outside.
The plant is
approaching that level now, the state said. Once CEMEX exceeds that limit, it
will be fined $10,000 per month for the rest of the year.
CEMEX plant
manager John Lohr did not return a phone call Monday.