| Subject: Latest on LaFarge - a Call to Action |
Author:
Ned Depew
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Date Posted: 12:08:13 07/13/06 Thu
Friends -
The season of negative air-quality reports and Ozone Alerts is here again, reminding us that the air in our beautiful Hudson valley is some of the most polluted in the country - perhaps the most polluted of any "semi-rural area" that excludes large urban areas like Dallas-Fort Worth and L.A. (#1 & #2 in dangerous air quality respectively).
We are already breathing some of the most polluted - and therefore most dangerous to our health - air in the US. That is a fact. The quality of our air is already becoming more dangerous year-by-year. That is a fact confirmed by the NYS DEC.
Now the DEC wants to allow the LaFarge plant in Ravena to burn tires - in spite of the fact that all independent analysis of such operations (that burn tires in cement kilns) indicate that the emissions results of such incineration are inconsistent and unpredictable from minute-to-minute, hour-to-hour and day-to-day - but very predictably lead to regular releases of relatively very high levels of some of the most dangerous pollutants.
The Town of Germantown has officially requested that air monitors be installed in the Town. The Town of Stuyvesant has officially registered their "strong opposition" the permit, and also requested that the DEC carefully monitor the air downwind of LaFarge, to determine whether the company's "computer projections" of their emissions will match the actual results.
The Town of Nassau and the Rennselaer County Legislature have also registered their opposition to this poorly considered decision by the DEC. Other municipalities including the Town of Clermont and the City of Hudson are considering resolutions expressing strong objections to the DEC's action.
(Digression: Here's a hint. When Holcim applied for their permit for their Devils Slide UT plant, they underestimated - via computer projection - some elements of their emissions stream by 700%! When the Midlothian, TX Holcim plant applied for a permit to add a second kiln they "projected" via computer models, that they would cut total emissions. In fact, emissions just about doubled!)
Unfortunately, this "protection" for citizens will be after-the-fact. By the time the pollution is measured by any air monitors, it will already have been inhaled deep into the lungs of county residents.
The data - other than that supplied by the Companies, who clearly have a vested interest, and whose track record with the statistics they provide is dismal - unequivocally indicates that burning tires will produce (at the very least) spurts of high concentrations of some to the most dangerous pollutants known to science.
If LaFarge is allowed to go ahead as currently permitted - if the permit is not revoked - all those of us who live in the County (and especially the elderly and the very young) will be subjected to an increased risk of cancer, sever asthma attacks and other serious - even life threatening - ailments.
And there can be little doubt that SLC Cementon and the Lehigh/Blue Circle plant will soon try to follow the path of cutting fuel costs and maximizing shareholder profits by burning tires, using the DEC's decision in the LaFarge case as their precedent.
It is up to those of us who live here to protect ourselves, since the DEC clearly has no interest in protecting us. We must bring this issue to our Town Boards, and to the County Legislature, and get strong resolutions, demanding that the DEC withdraw this permit until a thorough, independent air-quality study is conducted, one with evidence from independent sources and taking into account actual data (not simply "projections") on stack emission from tire-burning cement kilns, and is made central in re-evaluating the decision about this issue.
There is no reason we should run an increased risk of ill-health and premature death simply so that a company can make larger profits and the State can say it is "doing something" about the surplus tire problem.
Our air-quality is already declining. The idea that the DEC would accept untested data to conclude that "no review was needed" in the face of the documented health problems this type of air-pollution (Dioxins, Furans, VOCs and PM2.5) creates is proof that they are failing in their responsibility to protect the environment and the public health.
We must hold them to account. We must - if we are to protect our health and that of those we love - get our elected representatives to fight for out right to clean, healthy air, for a safe environment for our children, our elderly and ourselves. And we must win - because if we don't, the Hudson Valley will become more and more like Cancer Alley in Louisiana - the "poster-child" for the horrible effects of inadequately controlled industrial air emissions.
To avoid this, each one of us must get involved. Talk with and/or write your Town and County officials. Get them to pass resolutions addressing this issue, and to follow through to makes sure we get action. Get involved with your State Legislative campaigns, to make sure all those running understand the importance of this issue, and are committed to help us protect the health of our community.
The lives you help protect will be those of yourself, your neighbors and your families. Isn't that worth the effort?
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