Dust in the wind

Cement plant north of Boulder faces state penalties, federal inspectors and the wrath of a whistleblower

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by Pamela White(Editorial@boulderweekly.com)

Making cement is a dirty business. It involves a series of complicated steps that take raw stone from quarries and transform it into a very fine powder that attains remarkable qualities when mixed with water.

Without cement, the primary ingredient in concrete, modern architecture and transportation could not exist. But the manufacture of cement produces a host of pollutants. Most cement plants burn coal for fuel, releasing toxins and particulate pollutants into the atmosphere. In addition, the heavy industrial machinery needed to create cement requires vast amounts of oil for lubrication. Then there’s the ever-present dust byproducts–rock dust, clinker dust, cement kiln dust and powdered cement itself.

Since 1969, cement has been manufactured at the cement plant located just outside Lyons. Currently owned by Cemex, a Mexican company with net sales of $6.5 billion last year and the largest manufacturer of cement in North America, the plant supplies about 25 percent of Colorado’s demand for cement and employs some 100 people year round. While its product might be in demand and its contributions to the local economy valuable, the plant is less than popular with people who live nearby.

For six years, Cemex has been the source of complaints from neighbors who say fugitive dust plumes from the plant have invaded their homes, ruined the paint jobs on their cars and left them ill. While neighbors have complained to the EPA, the state and the county, they say precious little has been done to address the alleged problems at Cemex. Further, the neighbors say that officials have at times treated them as annoyances, with one county official referring to them as NIMBYs–complainers whose unhappiness can best be explained by the phrase, "Not In My Back Yard."

But the wind may be shifting. In March, a state inspector responded to county government concerns by launching a series of unannounced inspections at Cemex. The inspections netted a host of alleged air-quality-control violations, a number of which are directly related to fugitive dust. The state’s enforcement effort received an unexpected boost when a Cemex employee, frustrated by the company’s alleged inattention to employee concerns, began to feed information to the health department, including three hours of video footage filmed inside the plant in July and August.

Although the current state action against the plant, which might result in a substantial fine, could be resolved as soon as Nov. 20–the day this paper hits the streets–Cemex’s worries are not over. Boulder Weekly has learned that the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), a federal agency, has just launched its own investigation of the plant.

Boulder Weekly has had an exclusive visit with the Cemex insider and viewed the video footage. To help make sense of this complicated situation, the paper has also spoken with neighbors, as well as an official representative of Cemex and state and county officials in an attempt to understand what’s going on at Cemex–and what’s so upsetting about a little dust in the wind.

In their backyard

Richard Cargill, executive director of the St. Vrain Valley Community Watchdogs, lives within sight of the Cemex factory, which was then called Southdown. He and his wife moved into the area in 1997 and immediately realized they were facing some kind of pollution problem.

"We were always coughing, and there was always white dust in the house and on our cars in the morning," Cargill says. "It had a tendency to corrode our windshields and the finish on our paint. We didn’t know what it was but we could see these big plumes of dust coming from the cement factory. Sometimes you’d have white-outs."

Ken and Lou Dobbs, who live even closer to the cement plant, were also distressed by the conditions around them. They had learned to keep their windows closed to keep fine white cement dust from getting into their home. Still, they were concerned about what they were being asked to breathe.

Even if the dust was not toxic, they knew it was some kind of particulate pollution–small particles of solid matter that float in the air and can be inhaled–and could therefore have an impact on their health. Particulate matter has been proven to cause wheezing, exacerbate asthma and other lung problems, and has even been linked with premature aging of the lungs and death. Cement dust, in particular, because it has a high pH, can cause chemical burns.

By this time, there was a small organizing effort underway in the neighborhood. When one of the key players decided to sell her home and move to the Western Slope, she passed her files on to Cargill, who already had a history of environmental activism.

"We formed the Watchdogs, and we began to pursue this through the regulatory agencies," Cargill says.

While the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has ultimate enforcement authority over water and air quality, enforcement falls first to the county, then to the state.

The Watchdogs sent a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency. But the EPA wrote back to say the dust was associated with "high-wind events" common in their area.

The activists didn’t accept that as an answer, and by 1998, a concerted effort was underway to report dust plumes to the Boulder County Health Department. County and state records document the many complaints that were called in by Cargill, the Dobbs and others. While the EPA’s response had been nonexistent, the county’s response was altogether underwhelming, the activists say.

County officials told residents that inspectors needed to see the dust plumes themselves in order to be able to act on them. Because it took county officials about 40 minutes to reach the plant after receiving a fugitive-dust complaint, this rarely happened. The residents’ frustration mounted.

In an effort to resolve the issue, the county asked residents to videotape the dust plumes. Lacking a video camera, they began to take photographs and share those with the county.

"There’s no way to win," says Lou Dobbs, recalling the aggravation of those years. "We can’t videotape it, because we don’t have the video camera. They can’t give us a video camera. They can’t act without proof, and they can’t get out here to get proof. The state says they can’t be everywhere at once. There’s this big loophole, so what do you do?"

County and state records show many instances in which fugitive dust-plumes were reported to officials via phone, through letters and sometimes through photographs. In several cases, the county or state asked the plant to update its Fugitive Dust Control Plan (FDCP). In other cases, it’s unclear what action, if any, was undertaken by regulatory agencies.

In February 1999, faced with persistent complaints about dust, the Boulder County Board of Health passed Resolution 99-1, establishing a taskforce that would bring community members, government officials and Southdown representatives together to resolve some of the problems. Funded by state and county money, the task force, given the unwieldy name Northern Boulder County Environmental Health Community Task Force, met over a period of two years and produced a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), which Cargill signed, together with county officials and Southdown/Cemex Plant Manager John Lohr.

In the MOU, Southdown/Cemex agreed to a number of substantial changes. The plant agreed to install and maintain a sprinkler system in its cement kiln dust disposal pit; install and maintain a sprinkler and watering system at its Dowe Flats quarry site; purchase and use a second water truck to keep roadways wet and minimize dust in the air; modify its current truck wash system so that trucks carrying cement would be forced to drive through it; and add a sign stating, "Air Pollution Stops Here." Further, the plant agreed to distribute a community newsletter about improvements and updates at the plant and instructions for filing complaints with the plant; hire an employee to augment plant housekeeping efforts; re-prioritize plant expectations, including a formal plant-sweeping schedule and a complaint procedure for handling neighborhood issues. In addition, Cemex committed to installing a closed-circuit television monitoring system to allow plant operators to monitor the facility for dust problems around the clock; limit use of certain equipment to the hours of 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.; shut down any activities that might cause dust emissions when winds reach 30 mph for a 15-minute period; and respond to all complaints with immediate and follow-up action.

The county, for its part, agreed to copy the plant’s inspection reports and provide them to task force members.

Neighborhood residents left the table feeling they had finally accomplished something and reasonably hopeful they had seen the last of the cement dust. The county won a national award for its efforts, while Cemex earned an honorable mention from the cement industry’s environmental awards. Everyone was satisfied–for the moment.

"The MOU worked for a while, and then suddenly we started noticing all these dust storms again," Cargill says.

Gabi Hoefler, an inspector with the Boulder County Health Department, acknowledges that some residents have been frustrated with both the county and with Cemex since the MOU was signed and feel Cemex has been unresponsive to their concerns or failed to abide by the MOU.

"During the task force [Cemex was] very responsive," she says. "They sat down with the citizens and worked through numerous plans and implemented a number of new projects. And after that I don’t know necessarily that [the MOU] fell apart as–I’m not really sure how to say it–maybe [Cemex did] not stay on top of it as much as they needed to."

In the early spring of 2002–about six months after the MOU was signed–the sprinkler Cemex had agreed to install and maintain froze. A state official who inspected the plant on Oct. 1, 2002, sent a letter to Cemex stating that the sprinkler system had been out of operation "for an extended period of time" and recommending that the company keep spare parts on hand to ensure speedier repairs.

Activists see Cemex’s failure to keep the sprinkler system operational as proof the company didn’t take the MOU seriously. For them, it strains the limits of credibility that a multi-billion-dollar company couldn’t do a better job of making certain the system received timely repairs.

Hoefler says it’s more likely a problem of not thinking far enough ahead, as opposed to an issue of malfeasance.

Regardless of the cause, residents were again disheartened. Their growing sense of frustration was heightened by the discovery that the company had burned some 88 million gallons of solvents and waste oil in its kiln between 1975 and 1991 without the proper permit, as well as the company’s August 2002 announcement that it wanted to burn tires as a fuel source in its kiln–something it had not done since 1993. (See sidebar.)

On Sept. 9, 2002, Cargill made a presentation to the Boulder County Board of Health, in which he alleged that Cemex had failed to comply with the MOU as evidenced by the frequent dust clouds. Board member Jeannette Hillary reportedly asked if it was time to hold Cemex’s "toes to the fire," and residents attending the meeting indicated they felt it was.

On Sept. 30, 2002, Hoefler and Pam Milmoe made an unannounced inspection at Cemex on behalf of the county. They found excess dust piled on top of the plant’s A-Frame building, as well as numerous piles of clinker around it; excessive fugitive dust emissions at the Clinker Pit due to improper handling of material by a worker; dust on the haul road behind the A-Frame; piles of dust under a conveyor belt at the south end of the plant, a condition they noted had been reported in previous inspections; and materials stockpiles which could be a source of fugitive dust and which inspectors had previously suggested should be watered or misted to keep down fugitive dust. The county demanded a written response from Cemex demonstrating how the problems would be corrected.

Their findings were quickly passed onto the state, which generated a letter of its own to Cemex on Oct. 15, 2002. In that letter, the state demanded Cemex yet again revise its Fugitive Dust Control Plan.

Cemex and the state went back and forth on the revisions well into March 2003. But by March 26, 2003, when state inspector Paul Carr made his first unannounced visit to the plant, the dust-control plan was no longer Cemex’s biggest problem.

Donuts in the front office

When the state of Colorado takes action against a company for alleged violations of pollution laws, there is a set process to follow. First, inspectors note any violations and report them to their superiors. The company is notified, and confidential negotiations between the state and the company begin.

During negotiations, some allegations might be dropped–perhaps because they were found to be invalid when all the facts were examined–and other problems might come to light. The alleged violator is given a chance to voice their point of view and to divulge, without penalty, problems they might be having, as well as steps they are taking to resolve the situation. Eventually, the discussion comes down to fines. In some cases, companies are given the option of participating in Supplemental Environmental Programs, or SEPs, which are designed to improve the environment in some way. In other cases, companies are simply fined, with that money going into the state’s general fund. Often the original amount of the fine is reduced during negotiations.

From a cynical point of view, the process looks an awful lot like Let’s Make a Deal, with polluters getting state cooperation and taxpayers waiting in the dark.

"We take these kinds of issues seriously and our objective is to find solutions that work," says Margie Perkins, director of the state health department’s Air Pollution Control Division.

Unlike criminal cases involving citizens, who must plead guilty before receiving reduced penalties, civil cases against polluters do not involve an admission of guilt.

"There is no requirement under the law… to make an admission of guilt," says Perkins. "To be perfectly frank, an admission is not something I would be seeking as much as their agreement to take corrective action."

The government can also take criminal action against a polluter, and sometimes both civil and criminal cases are combined in one enforcement action, Perkins says.

While the end product of a criminal case is a verdict and sentence or a plea bargain, a civil action against a polluter ends with a Compliance Order on Consent, which outlines both the remaining allegations against the company and a breakdown of any fines or SEPs the company is required to pay.

As this edition of Boulder Weekly goes to press, Cemex representatives and officials are about to meet to discuss the latest version of the Compliance Order on Consent for alleged violations found by inspector Paul Carr during his March 26, 2003, inspection and subsequent visits.

Through a Colorado Open Records Act request, Boulder Weekly learned that Carr found 18 alleged air-pollution-control violations, seven of which involve issues related to fugitive dust emissions. Other alleged compliance violations include failure to calculate a variety of emissions correctly from a number of different sources and the failure to report four incidents of "upset condition" in the plant’s Semi-Annual Deviation Report.

"Upsets" are unpredictable failures of air pollution controls that result in the violation of emissions regulations and are not the result of poor management, poor maintenance or carelessness.

Boulder Weekly asked to speak directly with Carr, but was not allowed the opportunity. Christopher Dann, spokesman for the state health department, explained that no one in the department would be able to comment on Carr’s findings or the current negotiation with Cemex until negotiations are completed.

"All I can tell you is this policy of not discussing matters of negotiation until they’re resolved is not something unique to our interaction with Cemex," Dann says. "It’s been our policy in the eight and a half years that I’ve worked here, so it’s not anything new. And once negotiations are completed we have never refused to talk to any member of the media–chapter and verse–so I wouldn’t expect that it would be any different this time."

For other issues, such as enforcement in general, the paper was referred to Perkins, who sits three rungs up the ladder from Carr.

County officials likewise declined to comment on the current allegations against the company or the county inspection results that were forwarded on to the state in October 2002.

Representatives from the state attorney general’s office, which has been working with the health department on the current negotiations, also declined comment, going so far as to say the attorney general was not the expert on state statute when it came to air-quality regulations.

Mine Safety and Health Administration officials, who have oversight over worker health and safety issues at the plant, said they are investigating a complaint filed on Nov. 14.

"Right now we have an inspector there, along with an assistant, who are investigating the complaint," says Rodney Brown, MSHA spokesman. "We have an inspector (and an assistant) there now, looking into all of this."

The complaint includes 11 allegations, Brown says. The specifics of the complaint mirror the allegations made by the insider to Boulder Weekly–poor maintenance, worker intimidation and an unhealthy work environment.

"[The inspector’s] got a lot of stuff to check out," Brown says. "He’s going to be looking into each of these allegations, [at least] the ones that can be check out."

Brown says the agency gets about 100 complaints a year that require a response.

"Certainly a good number of them turn out to be frivolous," he says.

No figures were available to indicate how much Cemex is facing in possible financial penalties; nor can Boulder Weekly be certain which alleged violations will remain on paper when the negotiation process is completed.

Documents obtained through the Colorado Open Records Act indicate the amount of the potential fine could be six figures or higher. Whereas past enforcement actions have resulted in the company donating to SEPs in amounts under $10,000, the company appears to be tossing around substantially higher figures this time.

In a memo dated Oct. 22, 2003, Cemex indicates to the state that it is willing to spend $800,000 on "improvements" as part of its effort to resolve the current state enforcement action.

The same memo notes, "Cemex is interested in investing in projects [SEPs] and improvements, NOT fines."

However, it is not up to Cemex how the state ultimately decides to resolve the situation.

"If they feel compelled to tell us they’re not interested in fines, they can certainly do so," Perkins says. "That doesn’t necessarily sway us from doing what we need to do."

Certainly, Cemex is facing more alleged compliance violations this time than it has in the past.

While Cemex Plant Manager John Lohr would imply that some of the alleged compliance violations are the result of changing regulations–a possibility supported by county and state officials–someone at Cemex has a very different opinion.

[Editor’s note: Though state officials responded quickly and helpfully to Boulder Weekly’s open-records request, attorneys for Cemex were allowed to view the requested documents before they were shown to this newspaper. According to state officials, due process required them to let counsel for Cemex view documents before the state made them public. Cemex reportedly did not remove any documents from the files. However, due to apparent sloppiness on the part of the state’s attorneys, the name of the insider who fed information to the state was left in the files until it was brought to the state’s attention by Boulder Weekly. Whistle-blowers are protected from retribution by federal law.]

Candid camera

The tapes arrived at Boulder Weekly in a padded brown envelope, no return address. They contain almost three hours of footage filmed at the Cemex plant–by a Cemex employee, an insider who claims to have come forward out of concern for the workers.

There are too many accidents waiting to happen, the insider says, and the company wasn’t doing enough to improve matters for the workers.

"[People] would sit there in the safety meetings and get frustrated themselves," the insider says. "A lot of [them] welcomed [the state inspections] because they looked like they were going to start fixing it."

Though the insider claims to feel loyalty to Cemex, frustration grew when state inspections began back in March. The insider claims the company seemed to be trying to hide things from the state. The turning point for the insider came when several workers were allegedly shut in the cooler room with a leaking chemical tank in an effort to hide the leak from the state inspector. The workers allegedly became ill, and one allegedly missed work due to the effects of the chemical.

"At that point I wasn’t worried about [Cemex] because they weren’t worried about me or anyone," the insider says. "This really agitated me to push to get the changes done out there. Somebody had to do something."

Frustrated, the insider read a neighbor’s complaint against Cemex in the media and contacted the state of Colorado–and later Boulder Weekly. Among the tidbits the insider offered the state was the allegation that plant manager John Lohr had created an "early-warning system" to tip off employees that a state inspector was on the grounds. The insider claims that, whenever Carr arrived, word went out on the radio that there were "donuts in the front office."

(After being told about this code phrase, Carr was able to document its use during his June 30 visit to the plant.)

When the insider gave this information to the state, the "early-warning system" was abolished, the insider says. But there allegedly remained a desire to warn employees any time an inspector appears.

"[Nowadays] they will run to all areas–and I mean run–and tell them the state is there," says the insider. "Why would you do that? If you didn’t have anything to hide, why would you bother anyone with that?"

The insider also alleges Cemex employees were instructed to stop equipment during at least one state inspection visit in order to "hide leaks."

"They would walk [Carr] to certain areas, and as soon as he’d leave it was business as usual. The Sierra Club was out there, and they just led them around, too," the insider says.

And so the insider took a video camera to work to document conditions in areas of the plant the inspector had not seen.

The first video demonstrates how afraid the insider was to film while at work. The images jerk around, one moment focused on a dust pile or leaking machinery, the next giving the viewer a close-up look at the floor or the fabric of the insider’s clothing. The second and third tapes are much easier to watch. But all three show images of foot-deep piles of dust beneath conveyor belts; conveyor belt covers leaking plumes of dust; foot-deep dust on walkways; dust-covered cables crossing walkways; open transformer and breaker boxes; ceiling beams buried beneath six-inch-high piles of cement dust; oil-soaked rags tied around leaking machines; pipes swathed in duct tape; three-foot-deep piles of cement dust on roofs, particularly the A-Frame. ("If that much built up on the roof, think how much went into the air," the insider says in the tape narration.)

The three most striking images include a waist-high pile of cement dust that entirely blocks a door; the dashboard of a dump truck, the gauges of which are entirely missing; and a nearby water-filled ditch where cattails grow in a green oily slime surrounded by discarded oil filters or oil buckets.

"The equipment is so old," the insider alleges. "They just don’t put the money back into the plant."

The insider claims to be motivated most by the need for better working conditions and improved worker safety. The unkempt condition of the plant not only results in workers breathing more dust, but also getting more dust on their skin, the insider says.

Because cement has such a significant base pH, it can cause chemical burns just by touching skin. This is particularly true if the skin is moist from perspiration. The insider says there have been incidents of employees receiving minor burns to their skin or getting cement dust in their eyes.

And, in fact, MSHA records made available through the agency’s website indicate four incidents of dust-related injuries since 2000–one involving burns to the skin, the others dust in the eyes.

"It’s an accident waiting to happen," the insider says.

The insider says that by August, Cemex officials were aware that someone had been communicating with the state. Word was then allegedly passed around the plant that there might be incentives for the insider to come to plant management and talk with them first before going to the state. The insider began to feel less safe at that point and worried about being watched.

The inspections have resulted in some improvements, according to the insider. Management is running sweepers seven days a week during the day, for example. But much remains to be resolved, the insider says.

"I want to see the employees taken care of," the insider says. "[Plant Manager John Lohr] should be the champion for the people who are making him the money. He should be treating his employees the way he wants to be treated."

On site at Cemex

We park and walk through a stiff wind toward the front office building. A small cloud of cement dust lifts off the top of the cement storage silo and flutters against the blue sky like a pennant. We sign in with the receptionist and are quickly met by Plant Manager John Lohr, who shakes our hands and leads us back to a conference room. Four hardhats sit on the table amid samples of quarried stone, clinker and finished cement powder.

One of 13 Cemex plants in the United States, the Lyons facility provides Colorado with about 25 percent of the cement it uses to build and grow. Lohr tells us that Cemex’s cement can be found in Coors Field and the Pepsi Center, as well as in countless highway overpasses, homes and office buildings along the Front Range.

"We believe we’ve been a pretty significant part of the local economy," says Lohr, who’s been with the plant for 12 years.

It’s clear Lohr believes in the company he represents. The public image of Cemex is important to Lohr, who has run a number of full-page ads in local papers declaring the plant’s intention to be a good neighbor to the residents of Lyons, Hygiene and Longmont.

But there’s ink you can control, and there’s ink you can’t.

We begin by talking about ways in which the area has changed since the plant was first built in 1969. Lohr says it’s not a rural area any longer, but more of a suburban area.

"It is an upscale residential area," he says. "[As a result], we have to be very aware. We have to tend our business carefully. We work very hard at that."

Lohr says the plant has a neighbor complaint line that is staffed year-round 24 hours a day, even on Christmas. Then he tells about how Cemex banned a certain type of loud truck brakes at the plant after a neighbor complained.

Lohr brings up the Northern Boulder County Environmental Community Task Force and the resulting MOU.

"Everything we have committed to in the MOU, we have continued on," he says.

We point out that some neighbors don’t feel that way. Several community members allege that Cemex has failed to hold up its end of the bargain and point to maintenance of the CKD pit sprinkler system–the first agreement listed on the MOU–as proof Cemex didn’t take the MOU or the taskforce process seriously.

When we ask Lohr about the problems with the sprinkler in 2002, he seems to misunderstand the question and begins elaborating on issues pertaining to this year’s series of inspections. The sprinkler froze early in 2003, and it took two weeks to get replacement parts, he says.

When we attempt to clarify and make it clear we’re talking about 2002 and the letter from a state inspector stating that the system had been down for "an extended period of time," Lohr again refers to this year’s inspections and claims the sprinkler was out of operation for only two weeks while the company waited for new valves.

"We agreed to keep spare sprinkler parts, but we can’t stock a spare sprinkler system," Lohr says.

This means that if more parts need to be replaced than they have on hand, there could be delays as additional parts are ordered, he says.

Our question about the sprinkler system and the delay in repairs in 2002 goes unanswered.

Lohr, meanwhile, continues to praise the process that resulted in the MOU.

"We found the process and the contact so valuable, we are forming a new group now," he says.

The company has just launched a new Citizens Advisory Panel (CAP) in an effort to better connect Cemex with the community, he says.

What he doesn’t tell us, but which we know from state documents, is that the CAP is one of the improvements Cemex is offering the state as part of the continuing negotiation process over alleged permit violations. Nor does he mention that the CAP will be facilitated by M. Caplan Company, which also works for Roche, formerly Syntex and once the largest polluter in Boulder County.

We move to the topic of fugitive dust–a constant source of conflict. We point out that, according to county and state records, Cemex has repeatedly been asked by regulatory officials to revise its Fugitive Dust Control Plan to account for a whole range of conditions that have resulted in dust plumes. There have been so many requests for revision, in fact, that the plan has been in an almost constant state of change since 1998.

Frequent revision of dust-control plants is fairly standard for the industry, Lohr says.

"The community has changed around the plant in that period of time," he says. "Regulations have also changed during that period of time."

Lohr had previously said in a telephone conversation that some of the allegations against Cemex are the result of not having kept up with changing regulations.

With permit violations in mind, we move onto the real point of this interview.

First, we talk about the Compliance Order on Consent signed in 2000. That year an inspector found that particulate emissions from the raw materials dryer exceeded the limit of Cemex’s operating permit. Cemex was slapped with a $10,000 fine. The company ended up doing a Supplemental Environmental Program (SEP) rather than paying a fine and cut a check for $6,407 to Boulder County for road paving. It also installed a video camera to help it monitor its own emissions, an expense of $1,993.

Lohr explains that the increased emissions in that instance were the result of a broken weld that was quickly repaired.

State records show that when emissions from the dryer were rechecked a few months later, they fell within permit limits.

In February 2001, state inspector Shannon McMillan visited Cemex and found several violations of the company’s emissions permit. These included the need to modify their permit to allow for increased emissions because they hadn’t implemented a planned underground reclamation system; alleged failure to properly account for emissions from the gasoline storage tank on an annual basis; alleged failure to perform opacity readings semi-annually for several emission points; alleged failure to include certain statements in its annual certification report; and an alleged opacity violation from a transfer point from the dryer to the secondary crusher. The last–an opacity reading of greater than 20 percent–was an incident of excess emissions observed by the inspector.

Again, Cemex was fined $10,000, and again the state permitted Cemex to do an SEP. This time, a check for $6,000 was sent to the Fire Impacted Water Restoration Fund.

"There are no freebies," Lohr says. "There aren’t any warnings with the state. They see something, they observe something, you have a violation."

We tell him that a cynical person might decide that the state shows up once a year to raise a little extra money for itself.

"I like to believe that they are committed to enforcement and full implementation of all the laws and regulations," Lohr says, appearing to be deliberately tactful.

Then we move on to housekeeping, which, in the cement industry, largely means keeping the plant and grounds free from piles of dust and debris that might impact worker safety or might be picked up by high winds and transported through the air. Inspectors have repeatedly found piles of dust at the plant and mentioned housekeeping as a concern.

An Oct. 15, 2002, memo from the state notes, "Piles of dust were noted under conveyor belts, kiln, dryer, etc., during the inspection. These areas have a significant potential fugitive dust impact during windy conditions, which is a frequent occurrence in the area… The division recommends a more frequent schedule for housekeeping in these areas to minimize the potential for fugitive emissions."

Lohr tells us that housekeeping is relative to the industry and that for a plant that moves some 300 million tons of rock each year, Cemex is a clean plant.

We mention an Oct. 22 memo from Cemex to the state in which Cemex claims its level of housekeeping at the plant is at an all-time high. Lohr reaches into his stack of papers, removes a document and hands it across the table.

It is the Oct. 22 memo. And although it contains the sentence we just mentioned, deleted from the second page are references we’d seen on the state’s version of the memo to specific dollar amounts Cemex is willing to spend to resolve the situation, along with the statement, "Cemex is interested in programs and improvements, NOT fines."

Lohr grins sheepishly when confronted.

"You must have seen the version I sent to the state," he says. "This is a cleaned-up version."

The topic quickly shifts to trust. How does Cemex respond to statements by community members who say they simply cannot trust the company?

"If people are willing to live and let live, the company is willing to bend over backwards to try to address issues and try to make changes. I think we have in the past, and we intend to in the future," says Lohr. "But I can’t deal with somebody who says, ‘I don’t like you, and I want you to go away.’ I don’t know how to deal with that."

As for rumors that Cemex is planning on leaving the community, Lohr admits the company has looked at properties in Wyoming, although it still has an estimated 17 years of usable stone in its quarry. Even should the company decide to end its mining operations and relocate to Wyoming, Lohr says Cemex won’t leave the community altogether.

"I would see us having a presence here, at least a grinding and distribution facility, well into the future," he says.

Soon we move onto a discussion of the current enforcement action against Cemex.

Lohr points out that Carr found Cemex to be in compliance on most issues. And, indeed, the 61-page inspection report shows that Cemex is in compliance on most of its Title V permit conditions.

However, it also lists 18 alleged violations, ranging from improperly calculating PM10 emissions from several sources to failing to use chemical suppressants and water adequately to control fugitive dust emissions to failure to report four incidences of "upset" in the company’s semi-annual Deviation Report. The report concludes that Cemex is not in compliance with its Title V operating permit.

Lohr says some of the alleged violations involve conditions that could be judged subjectively. If the permit requires the company to use water and dust suppressant "as needed," what is the definition of "as needed?" In this case, the company’s definition was different than the state inspector’s definition, he says.

As Lohr goes through the allegations, he seems to feel his plant was compliant with the spirit of the laws that govern it, but happened to fall short when it comes to splitting hairs over the letter of the law. With regard to one allegation, Cemex was actually reporting more instances of opacity than they were required to report, he says, but were still cited with a violation for calculating it incorrectly.

"There is no pass. There is no freebie," he says again.

With regard to the four alleged instances of non-reporting, Lohr says paperwork was sent to the state with each of the instances; the plant simply forgot to include them in their semi-annual summary of upsets.

"That’s why the state knew they were there," he says.

Now it’s time for tougher questions. We ask him when he realized an insider–a Cemex employee–was feeding information to the state.

"The end of July or early August," he says. "I am disappointed that they didn’t point out these issues to us, but that is every individual’s right in this country."

Then we ask him about one of the most helpful bits of information the insider passed to state officials–the code phrase "donuts in the front office," which Lohr reportedly coined to alert employees that a state inspector was on the grounds.

Lohr doesn’t deny it.

"It’s been my policy since I came on the job here that if we have an inspector on the site, I want every employee to know that so people aren’t doing something stupid," he says. "It’s like an, ‘All hands on deck. You guys pay attention to what you’re doing.’"

We read off a list of allegations made to the state and Boulder Weekly by the whistleblower: poor maintenance of equipment; intimidation of staff; improper disposal of chemicals; lack of attention to overall maintenance resulting in dust problems; bad dust conditions for workers and the neighborhood; and lack of attention to the dust pit.

The most serious allegation involved Lohr’s alleged decision to shut several workers in the cooler room to clean up a chemical leak in an attempt to hide the leak from the inspector, who was on site.

Lohr doesn’t deny that workers were shut in the room, saying only that the door was not locked, but he says the chemical involved in that incident is not hazardous to human health.

"In terms of being locked in a room, no, that is not the case," he says. "It’s in an enclosed space that more resembles your basement than anything else with a tremendous amount of air moving through there."

As for the other allegations, Lohr says Cemex spends about $5 million a year on maintenance and manages to keep its kiln operating more than 90 percent of the year–a higher-than-standard result. As cement making is a largely automated process involving a chain of machines, problems in one place result in halts in the process. A kiln that operates 90 percent of the time or higher is an indication of a plant in which machinery is well maintained, he says.

Questions answered, we head off on our tour with hardhats, earplugs and protective eyewear.

We walk past the raw mill, where steel grinding balls crush rock to powder. We also view the finish mill, in which steel balls crush clinker, gypsum and limestone into cement powder–the final product. We get a guided tour of the lab where chemists run regular tests on the product from start to finish through the manufacturing process to make certain it has the correct chemical and crystal structure to become high-quality portland cement. We also visit the control room, where Reed Settle, a relief console operator, keeps his eyes on the entire operation. One monitor shows him a view of the entire plant. Another reveals wind speeds. Another shows the blazing red–actually infrared–of the interior of the superheated kiln.

Our path takes us up and down stairs, through hallways, across raised steel walkways and ends with a drive around the periphery of the plant. In the mills, a fine coating of dust covers the steel stairs and railings. When touched, it burns the skin. But the air is clear, and water coats the streets surrounding the plant, streets which have clearly been swept today–and which are still being swept–to keep dust from being picked up by the 25 mph winds blowing in from the west.

Is this the canned tour of Cemex?

Clearly, it’s not the Cemex shown in the insider’s videos.

No easy answers

After the tour, Boulder Weekly again contacted John Lohr to try to understand the difference between the Cemex we toured and the Cemex documented in three hours of video.

"This is the first I’ve heard of videos," Lohr says. "I would have to see them. If you would be willing to bring them out we could take a look at them and I could offer you comments. But without having seen them I guess it would be difficult for me to comment, and I would have to see, too, if there were other tasks going on."

Boulder Weekly explained we could not take the videos to Cemex for fear of divulging the identity of the insider and instead described scenes from the footage: high piles of dust blocking walkways and a door, oil filters floating in oily water, rags tied around dripping oil leaks and so on.

Lohr says he is unaware of any plant employees dumping oil or oil filters into water on the site.

"We go to great pains [with oil]," he says. "We hire a company to haul used oil away. Many of our oil filters, especially on the big equipment, are taken away, cleaned and returned for re-use. So I don’t know where those came from–whether they were from the plant, whether they were from a tenant who is leasing the [agricultural] land. I simply do not know."

If employees were discovered to be dumping oil or oil products, they would be disciplined, he says.

"That’s a very clear plant policy," he says.

As for the piles of dust, Lohr says large piles of dust sometimes occur but are cleaned up.

"There are certainly times where there are piles of dust in the plant and we have to have our employees clean those up, and they happen on a regular basis, but it usually has to do with equipment malfunction, equipment breakdown–that type of thing," he says.

But Lohr says he cannot truly comment without seeing the videos firsthand.

"I would have to see a little more, understand more," he says.

So what’s the bottom line at Cemex? Is the plant a well-managed facility that contributes not only jobs and a valuable product to our economy, but also does its best to be gentle on the environment? Or is it an embattled facility with safety, maintenance and cleanliness problems that impact its neighbors?

The evidence is contradictory, and with county, state and federal officials declining to comment and final reports from the state and MSHA weeks away, the final answer is not immediately forthcoming.

But neighbors are delighted that their concerns are apparently being taken seriously.

"Paul Carr is a man who takes his job very seriously, and he’s witnessed the problem of poor housekeeping," says Cargill. "His environmental ethic and his social conscience and his expertise have made him a hero in this community. He’s identified the problem, and he wants to correct it."

Cargill knows how he’d like to see this story end.

"[Cemex] has been there a long time," he says. "The demographics have changed. [Cemex] hasn’t been a good neighbor. It’s time for them to go."

Although state officials say there’s no link between Cemex’s proposal to burn tires and the alleged violations found by the state, Cargill says the two issues are absolutely connected. If the plant has so many problems controlling fugitive dust, it shouldn’t be trusted to manage something as complicated and potentially harmful to the environment as burning tires.

Lou Dobbs says she would oppose any resolution that did not involve Cemex paying a fine and feels strongly that SEPs should be directed toward programs for the plant’s neighbors.

"That money should go toward benefiting those who have suffered," she says. "It should not go to Cemex for funds to clean up the plant. They should have to do that anyway."

Meanwhile, the whistleblower responded with relief when MSHA inspectors arrived at the plant on Tuesday. For months, this individual has felt isolated. Now the insider hopes other employees will back up these claims. More than that, the insider hopes federal regulators will force changes at Cemex.

"I’m so glad for the safety for these [workers at Cemex]," the insider says. "That was really what I was concerned about to begin with."

Hot wheels
Controversy continues over Cemex’s plans to burn tires
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by Joel Warner (Editorial@boulderweekly.com)

On the surface, it sounds like a great idea, a win-win situation for everyone. Why not let Cemex use some of the two to three billion scrap tires sitting in landfills across the country to fuel its cement kiln, replacing in part the use of environmentally damaging coal fuels? After all, using coal means lots of mining, and using scrap tires spares our landfills.

But for nearby residents who’ve been fighting the proposal, tire burning is not so simple. They argue that tire incineration is far from a green-friendly process, especially in cement kilns not designed for such uses. And they say these concerns are magnified when a company like Cemex, which has a less-than-stellar environmental record, is in charge of the project.

For John Lohr, plant manager at Cemex, the use of tire-derived fuel is a no-brainer. Refitting the plant to burn tires will cost about $1.5 million. But once the kiln starts using 20 percent scrap tires, the plant should realize $500,000 annually in savings on fuel costs, plus about $225,000 annually from revenue generated from a recycling fee consumers would pay when they purchase tires. Lohr says the new fuel will also make the plant cleaner. A similar facility in Clinchfield, Ga., now burns tires and has lower emissions than the Lyons plant.

"If our experience is similar to that of other plants, we expect it will be very successful," says Lohr. "To the extent that we can reduce our consumption rate, we can extend our resources."

The Lyons plant is not necessarily new to the tire-burning business. It regularly burned tires in its kiln from 1989 to 1992. When Cemex announced in 2002 it would reinstate the practice, residents argued that they no longer had the correct permit. According to current county zoning laws, county permits lapse if they are not used in a five-year period. Since tires had not been burned at Cemex for more than five years, residents argued, they no longer had the right to do so.

But the county land use department gave the go-ahead to Cemex’s proposal–a move that led some critics to suggest that Cemex had greased the officials’ wheels by donating open space land to the county.

"Our feeling is, if they shut down the plant, they would have to re-apply for a special work permit," says county spokesman Jim Burrus. "What they decide to burn in the making of the product is immaterial to the special-use permit."

In the fall of 2002, Sierra Club sued the county land use department on the permit issue. The case has yet to be decided, stalling Cemex’s tire-burning plans.

If local residents and environmentalists have it their way, tires will never again be burned in Cemex’s kilns.

"They are trying to pass off this dinosaur as a safe combustion device to burn tires. And it’s physically impossible," says Ken Dobbs, local resident and member of the Environmental Justice Project. "Tires are toxic when they are burned, and they release tons of very hazardous chemicals to the environment."

Tire-burning proponents says cement kilns are often 100 times more efficient than the standards required for waste incinerators required by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). But skeptics say a kiln is very different than an incinerator. Kilns like Cemex’s use a 100-year-old technology called a bag house–a room filled with fabric bags–to block emissions from leaving the facility. While bag houses are reasonably effective for coal burning, critics say they are not designed for tire burning. And while a 1997 EPA report concluded that burning tires produced emissions similar to coal combustion, their tests were conducted in a highly controlled environments, not in fluctuating temperatures like those found in cement kilns.

Even in perfect conditions, some aren’t convinced burning tires is safe, pointing to a lack of consistent scientific evidence on the subject.

After a 2002 scrap-tire test burn in Cemex’s Lyons kiln, county and federal officials declared the process posed no serious local health hazards. But residents weren’t convinced. They pointed out that a quarter of the test’s raw data was thrown out, due to unusually high acetone levels. But county officials say the missing results were from the coal-burning portion of the test and not part of the tire-burning test and are therefore irrelevant. And while all were still within EPA limits, neighbors were also concerned by increased levels of toxins like benzene, mercury, arsenic, zinc and lead.

"The list just goes on and on," says Dobbs. "This is not just the little St. Vrain Valley. It’s been proven that these toxic plumes can travel as much as 47 miles in radius."

The fight over tire burning in Lyons mirrors a growing national debate. There are approximately 82 facilities in the country using tire-derived fuel, 36 of them cement kilns, and the number is growing. In response to increasing public concerns about these activities, grassroots groups in 18 states have formed the National Citizens Alliance, a coalition opposing cement plants and aggregate companies burning hazardous waste in their kilns. They say cement and aggregate kiln incinerators are the least-regulated and cheapest type of thermal treatment for combustible wastes in the country.

All of these concerns are compounded by the fact that Cemex doesn’t have a good track record handling its current operations, says Richard Cargill, executive director of the St. Vrain Valley Watchdogs.

"How can we trust this company to have good combustion controls, when they don’t seem to have good controls over anything else?" says Cargill. "Is this the kind of company we want doing anything in Boulder County–burning tires, making cement or anything else?"

Respond: letters@boulderweekly.com

 

 

Cement 101

Take a look around you–chances are you’ll notice something made out of concrete. Concrete is the most widely used man-made building material in the world, and there’s more of this versatile and powerful material around all the time. For example, every 18 months New York City adds about 4.25 million cubic tons of concrete to itself–enough to make another Hoover Dam.

While people often use the terms concrete and cement interchangeably, cement is actually the main hardening ingredient in concrete. Manufactured cement was invented by English bricklayer Joseph Aspdin in 1824, who named his creation portland cement because its color was similar to limestone from the Isle of Portland.

The creation of cement begins in the rock quarries where raw materials are extracted. Usually these materials are primarily limestone, but in Lyons both shale and limestone are used. At the cement factory these materials are crushed into powder and run through a kiln, a huge rotating, horizontally sloped furnace, the world’s largest piece of moving industrial equipment. As the mixture approaches temperatures of 2,700 degrees Fahrenheit, it calcinates, losing its carbon dioxide, and emerges as a red-hot material called clinker. The clinker is first cooled, then ground into a fine powder and mixed with gypsum at a ratio of 95 percent clinker to 5 percent gypsum to make portland cement. The Cemex plant outside Lyons alters the chemical composition of their cement to make seven different types of portland cement.

Dry cement is then shipped to concrete producers, which combine the cement with water, sand and gravel to make concrete. Concrete is then transported to construction sites in revolving drums. Concrete doesn’t just dry like clay. Water initiates a chemical process in the cement called hydration, locking together with compounds of calcium, silicon, aluminum and iron. Dry concrete is a wholly distinct material from wet concrete, a material than can gain strength indefinitely.

–JW

Respond: letters@boulderweekly.com