The Dallas Green Zine

(Dallas)– Public health advocates say desperation by a company out of sync with the times has motivated an ill-advised lawsuit filed against local governments by the operator of the oldest, dirtiest cement plant in North Texas.

Late in the afternoon on the day before Thanksgiving, lawyers for Kansas City-based Ash Grove Cement filed suit in federal court against the cities of Dallas, Ft. Worth, Arlington, Plano, The Dallas County School District and Tarrant County for adopting “green cement” resolutions that favor modern, less polluting dry kilns over older, dirtier wet kilns - like the three the company operates at its 43-year-old Midlothian plant, south of Dallas.

“I don’t see Ford suing these cities for replacing their Crown Victorias with Priuses,” remarked Jim Schermbeck, spokesperson for Downwinders At Risk, the longtime local pollution watchdog group. He compared the municipalities’ motive for buying cement from dry kilns with why they’re buying hybrids to replace older, more polluting gas-guzzlers. “It’s all about public health and staying one step ahead of the Clean Air Act.”

He believes the company knows it can’t win in court. “ But this isn’t a lawsuit meant to win. It’s meant to scare local officials and stem the loss of business to newer and cleaner kilns,” said Schermbeck. He pointed out that besides the seven cities, counties and school districts cited by Ash Grove in its lawsuit, three more cities have green cement resolutions on their council agendas in the next two
weeks, beginning with Denton on Tuesday.

“Ash Grove is losing their largest customers over legitimate concerns about air pollution. Rather than investing in a modern plant that would significantly reduce pollution, Ash Grove is investing in lawyers and suing those customers because of their legitimate concern. That’s not a strategy they recommend in business school. What happened to ‘the customer is always right?”

Ash Grove’s three cement kilns in Midlothian are the oldest still operating in North Texas, dating back to 1965. They run without “scrubbers” for Sulfur Dioxide pollution - something regulators say would not be permitted now. They can emit twice as much smog-causing pollution as newer dry kilns just down the road. State officials say the cumulative emissions of all three Midlothian cement plants can have a significant impact on local ozone levels. It’s that impact that the green cement resolutions target, persuading Ash Grove to make mandatory state emissions cuts a year early and helping to convince TXI to shutter all four of its Midlothian wet kilns earlier this year. Over 5000 tons of air pollution has been reduced in whole, or part, by the adoption of green cement purchasing policies since Dallas passed the first one in May 2007.

According to EPA and state data, Ash Grove is among the largest industrial polluters in North Texas, belching out over 19 million pounds of air pollution in 2006 (the last year figures are available), including almost 80,000 pounds of officially classified “toxic” air pollution such as lead, mercury, styrene and benzene.

That also includes over 12 million pounds of Sulfur Dioxide pollution - twice as much as Holcim’s much bigger cement plant across Highway  67 - and over four million pounds of ozone causing Nitrogen Oxide. Pound for pound, the Ash Grove cement plant may have the three dirtiest smokestacks in the region.

Green cement resolutions put pressure on wet kiln operators to either update their smog-causing pollution controls to the level of dry kilns, or replace their wet kilns with new dry ones. They do this by incorporating state emissions standards as specs in bids for cement purchasing. These specs favor more aggressive pollution controls that Ash Grove has chosen to avoid so far. While it was forced by the recent DFW clean air plan to install new equipment that cuts this kind of pollution, Ash Grove still can’t reach the same level of control demanded of Midlothian’s dry kilns, mainly because its design is obsolete. There hasn’t been a new wet kiln built in the US since the 1970’s and more close every year. They use too much energy, are too inefficient and pollute too much. In 2009, there will be less than 40 in the entire country, compared to over 130 dry kilns.

“That’s why we think this lawsuit is an act of desperation by a backward-looking company seeking to exempt itself from competing under modern rules,” Schermbeck said.  “There are now third world countries with better cement kilns than Ash Grove’s.”

Ash Grove has owned 2000 acres of farmland in Grayson County near the Red River for a new North Texas plant for over 10 years. Despite both its local competitors building new dry kilns in North Texas during that time, the company has not announced any plans to build its own DFW dry kiln on the Grayson County land. Instead, it committed to spending $200 million to replace three aging wet kilns at its Forman, Arkansas plant with a single new dry kiln that will produce twice as much cement with half the pollution.

Schermbeck challenged the company. “I’d like to see the President of Ash Grove try to explain why rural Arkansas residents whose air doesn’t violate federal standards deserve the best cement kiln technology, but DFW residents, whose air has violated the Clean Air Act for 17 straight years, do not.”

Schermbeck said the lawsuit would have the effect of promoting a unified regional green cement legislative response in the up-coming state legislative session in Austin. “When the same governmental entities being sued by Ash Grove combine their lobbying muscle in Austin, this lawsuit will become moot before the first round of motions are heard. I know many of these officials, and they won’t like being sued for doing things the law clearly gives them the power to do, and that they’ve been doing for years. I predict this will end badly for Ash Grove.”

This article comes from Downwinders At Risk. For more information, click here.