Sure we can - and pollute it too!

Making the world a better place, one cancer at a time

Anti-Christs don't show up well on film

Turns out there's a big meeting today on this very subject.  From the Downwinder's website: 

Here’s Your Chance to Tell EPA You Want Cleaner Cement Plants and Cleaner Air

Wednesday June 17th
10 am to 8 pm
Grand Hyatt/DFW Int’l Airport
inside Terminal D

Because of its large concentration of cement kilns, the Environmental Protection Agency has announced that DFW will host one of only three national public hearings on new rules limiting cement industry pollution, including the first ever limits for Mercury emissions.

On June 17th, the Environmental Protection Agency will take public testimony at the DFW Airport Hyatt Regency from 10 am to 8 pm on new federal rules that would significantly decrease some of the most dangerous kinds of air pollution cement plants release, including Mercury, Particulate Matter, or soot, Hydrochloric Acid, and chemicals contributing to smog called Total Hydrocarbons.  Two other hearings will take place that week in Washington D.C. and Los Angeles.

The cement industry is lobbying hard against these new rules. That’s why we need you to come and support President Obama’s EPA in its first attempt at regulating some of the country’s worst polluters. 

Please plan on attending the June 17th hearing.  EPA officials from Washington DC will be attending because they anticipate that the DFW hearing will be the best attended of the three. Let's not disappoint them. Your presence in support of these new rules is critical in showing EPA there is widespread consensus on the need for these wet kilns - and all the cement kilns - to install the best possible pollution control equipment. < /font>This event is for average citizens who want their voice to be heard over the noise of big business.   Talking Point >>

Cement Kilns Must Clean Up Toxic Air Pollution

Talking Points For Your June 17th Comments:

1) DFW has the largest concentration of cement kilns of a ny region in the country, and more obsolete and dirtier "wet kilns" than any other part of the country. These cement kilns account for fully half of all industrial air pollution in North Texas.

2) Studies show these cement plants can have a big impact on DFW air quality. We're directly downwind of these plants for most of the year.

 3) EPA's proposed rules would hasten the modernization or replacement of the older wet kilns - the dirtiest smokestacks in North Texas - and the reason many local governments in DFW have passed "green cement" resolutions. This means cleaner air in North Texas.

4) Cement kilns are some of the biggest mercury polluters in the country. Mercury is a dangerous neurotoxin that can impair a child's ability to walk, talk, read, write and learn. Mercury also interferes with the brain and nervous system and can affect blood pressure, fertility, can cause memory loss and tremors.

4) Reducing Total Hydrocarbons from the kilns will help our ozone pollution problem. While we're close to meeting the old ozone standard, that standard is being replaced by one that's much tougher. We n eed all the reductions in ozone-forming pollution we can get to reach that goal.

5) Reducing soot, also called Particulate Matter, will help keep DFW from exceeding national Particulate Matter standards which are overdue to be lowered to protect public health, and which we hover close to at th e current levels. Scientists now say that there is no safe level of exposure to Particulate Matter, so any decrease will improve Public Health.

6) All the pollution control technologies needed to meet EPA's new emissions standards are on cement plants in the US right now.  All the industry has to do is combine these at each plant. EPA estimates that these rules will cost the entire US cement industry less than $1 billion a year, but save the public $4 to 12 billion a year, along with saving 600 to 1,600 lives annually.

If you want to know more about the rules, you can download the official EPA fact sheet at:
http://www.epa.gov/ttn/oarpg/t3/fact_sheets/portland_prop_fs042109.pdf

Results of the meeting:

D/FW AIRPORT — Dozens of speakers Wednesday urged the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to crack down on pollution from cement plants — after more than a decade of delay.

The cement industry, though, said that proposed EPA rules would force plants to shut down and might even increase pollution globally if cement manufacturing were pushed overseas.

Anthony Pace of Richardson brought his 12-year-old son, Nicholas, to a news conference before the EPA public hearing. Pace said asthma is an "epidemic" among children in the Metroplex and blamed it partly on pollution from cement kilns.

"These have become standard equipment today," he said, holding up Nicholas’ asthma inhaler. "They’re as common as glasses."

Arlington Mayor Robert Cluck, who is a doctor, said he can see the effect of air pollution every day in his hospital emergency room — children with asthma attacks and people with chronic lung disease struggling to breathe.

"It’s a terrible sight," he said.

The 10 cement kilns in Midlothian, southeast of Fort Worth, are one of the biggest concentrations of plants in the country and the single biggest source of industrial pollution in North Texas, according to environmental groups.

You can read the full article here.

Now here's some Skynyrd: