New Cement Plant Rules in Trouble at EPA?

There's been a flurry of news about cement plant pollution this past week or so that we haven't been able to cover as well as we should have for a clean air group that has the largest concentration of cement manufacturing capacity in the US in its own backyard. Most important of all is the possibility that EPA will mess with its tough new cement plant emissions rules that Downwinders and so many of you fought long and hard to get passed. These are the rules that were at the center of the 2008 DFW airport hearing that drew 200 people – the largest hearing on them in the country. These are the rules that are forcing old wet kilns like Ash Grove and others around the country to finally modernize. Originally mandated to come on line in 1997, they're just now on the verge of being promulgated as final by EPA. Only there's a catch. For no apparent reason that anyone in the environmental side of the table can figure out, EPA is seriously considering giving industry a two-year extension that no court has ordered EPA to give them. There's a June 15th deadline that the agency imposed on itself, to respond to a Portland Cement Association's petition to either delay the rule outright until 2015 instead of 2013, or take comment on such an extension. Either move would delay the implementation since they're on schedule to become official in November. No one at EPA will say why they're taking the PCA petition so seriously when they've spend the last two decades blowing off similar requests by citizens. Downwinders, along with 14 other local groups, has signed a letter going to EPA Assistant Administrator Gina McCarthy that protests ANY delay and asking her to reject the PCApetition. Downwinders Director Jim Schermbeck was one of seven people that met with McCarthy in Washington DC earlier in the month to discuss how important these rules are to places like Midlothian – where's there not one, not two, but three cement plants operating within close proximity to one another. While the meeting went well, McCarthy was non-committal. We're not ones to quietly sit on the sidelines as something that we've worked for almost 20 years gets victimized by what looks to be election year politics. Expect to see more in the coming days about what you can do to prevent this public health tragedy from an increasingly wimpy EPA. Stay tuned