Sunday, November 09, 2008

TOXIC DUST FROM CEMEX?

THE ENVIRONMENT AGENCY ARE TESTING TOXIC DUST IN RUGBY?

YES WE CAN!
ON SECOND THOUGHTS
OH NO WE CAN'T!
WE ONLY PERMIT!

JUST A MINUTE:
while we talk without hesitation, repetition, or deviation, about CEMENT plant EMISSIONS! At first the Environment Agency's own National Laboratory Service said they could quote for the analysis of the CHROMIUM VI in the ambient air and dust downwind of the Cemex Rugby plant, but now suddenly, (seemingly after reading this blog site), they cannot! They now suggest we get help elsewhere and contact AEAT for a quote, which we have done, as instructed by the EA's own laboratory, while the EA, which is supposedly the "regulator" which is "responsible for the permitting of toxic emissions in Rugby" (and elsewhere) stands by, in blissful ignorance, "head-banging" and "not knowing"!

ENVIRONMENT AGENCY AND CEMENT PLANT WORLD IN SHOCK!
as Davenport investigation reveals very high chromium VI readings, but it is still business as usual! "We have already TOLD YOU dumbos in Rugby so many times that ALL THE RAW MATERIALS AND WASTE FUEL SUBSTITUTES used in the CO-INCINERATING CEMENT PLANTS, such as TYRES and RDF which replace COAL, and MILL SCALE and SLAG which replace iron oxide, are all the same in terms of emissions, and ALL THE SAME TO US!" says the UK's Environmental pollution permitting Agency.

ENVIRONMENT AGENCY JUST GUESSING?
Maybe the Environment Agency are still wondering what chemical contents the substituted mill scale and slag actually have, as these "industrial waste alternative raw material replacements" are being merrily substituted in the UK's cement industry WITHOUT the MANDATORY EU WASTE CODES or the MANDATORY DUTY OF CARE NOTES - so maybe the Environment Agency are actually in the same position as the rest of the UK - JUST GUESSING!. Perhaps its time for a little science lesson for the Agency, which for so long has poured scorn on the Rugby residents, scoffing at us, and dismissing our genuine concerns?

TOXIC DUST FROM CEMEX?
The answer is blowing in the wind - see Nov/Dec 2008 edition of THE HIGHLANDER from the Bonny Doon, as it explains how the hexavalent chromium was discovered in the air at the local elementary school, where the internal air is now being analysed. Young people are much more at risk, and it accumulates in the body and is one of the causes of lung cancer. The Monterey Bay Unified Air Pollution Control District (MBUAPCD) is now studying the Cemex operations and air quality impacts with a view to allowing the plant to start up again. Visit www.mbuapcd.org/index.cfm/Cat/67.htm to learn more. Ed Kendig apparently told the Santa Crux Sentinel: "We have to remember it will take a long period of stable operations and monitoring before we can draw conclusions about how satisfactory the Davenport plant's emissions are."

ENVIRONMENT COUNCIL UPDATE:
Despite the Rugby Cement Community Forum being told by Cemex on 8 October 2008 that there was NO chance of any funding for the planned September/early October meeting of the FOCUS GROUP, which gained endorsement and support at the WORKSHOP 17 September, and that the community should "pay for it ourselves", a change of heart has occurred among the "big three". Further additional funding to add to the £25,000 already invested by the Environment Agency, Cemex and Rugby Borough Council in finding a "new way forward with open honest meaningful community engagement and timely provision of accurate independently verified data, and with a real opportunity for the local stakeholders to have a say about their environment, amenity, air quality and health" is now back on the Agenda. Watch this space.

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT FAILURE:
The two Cemex applications for a waste plant at either, or both, SOUTHAM or RUGBY MALPASS seem deficient, in that they have not complied with the EIA Regulations. Even WCC planners have spotted that - although they did initially accept the proposals, which have not made the mandatory BPEO assessments and have not compared the two alternative proposals. It seems these will not now be able to go to the WCC Regulatory Committee on 15 December as scheduled, and it is back to the drawing board for Cemex and GOLDERS ASSOCIATES. See WCC planning portal.



HOUSE OF LORDS TOLD
"NO-ONE BUT LILIAN IN RUGBY OR IN
THE WHOLE WORLD,
CARES ABOUT CEMENT PLANT EMISSIONS!"
by gullible, or loyal, or misdirected, or misinformed, or misunderstanding, scientifically-challenged Agency lawyers : in order to extort costs! Meanwhile the five Lords, in their wisdom, have handed down a most "peculiar and controversial" judgment in which they could not even agree between themselves on most of what they had heard, and some of them seem to think that "secret communications" behind the public's back, in order to prevent environmental, and air quality information about health damaging toxic pollutants from getting into the public arena, is quite OK by them, and is only the expected and usual course of the UK's government departments.

* Para 54: LORD HOFFMAN: "But the present case does not involve the construction of anything, so in my view falls outside of the EIA Directive." Err - so excuse me but how do they get the wastes into the plant then? What are these new constructions , that have been nodded through by the WCC planning department (see WCC web 23 January 2003), buildings presumably invisible to the eye of some judges?

* Para 84: LORD MANCE: "Second the plan to change to tyre burning did in any event involve not inconsiderable physical adaptation of the company's site and plant..... covered reception area with sprinklers for 300 tonnes tyres (now 600 tonnes!), mechanical conveyors, metering system, airlocks, and new combustion chamber." Lord Mance has done his homework, and sees quite clearly.

* Para 30: "There is an unchallenged finding of fact that the ONLY change in operation proposed by the application, namely the use of TYRES, would not have significant negative effects on human beings or the environment", totally ignoring the actual facts of the case regarding the turning of the works into a full scale co-incinerator, which then allowed unlimited substitution by various WASTE FUELS. Ignoring also the HEALTH EFFECTS of the substitution of the various raw materials by INDUSTRIAL WASTES that were discretely added, unseen, into the (hidden) IPPC application. There was only one closely-guarded copy in Rugby, at the Borough Council's so-called Environmental Health Department, and no-one got any chance to see that until after the consultation was closed - while they kept on holding sham-meetings, and giving out misleading and false information and non-technical summaries (the kid's version?) about tyre burning and about NONE OF THE OTHER WASTES that were included in the IPPC application!!

* Para 64: "In the present case there was no breach of European Law, and the ONLY breach of domestic law was the FAILURE TO DISCLOSE INFORMATION about the predicted effects of emissions." Well done for that recognition that it does not matter to mislead the public and not to tell the truth about environmental impacts.

* Para 64: "Since then, however, the actual emissions from the plant have been monitored." Err.. no my noble lord, sorry yet again but , the emissions from the plant have NEVER been monitored, nor has any attempt to monitor them ever been made!

WHAT EVER NEXT?
A little bird told me that the Environment Agency's own lawyers have now suddenly decided that "environmental issues are indeed serious concerns!" Not then their usual dismissive approach. They plan a yet more devious trick planned in order to "infiltrate groups, and to keep an eye on the public", and that they, in order to poach work from long-standing dedicated environmental public interest lawyers are setting up a new department. This will then "co-incidentally" enable them to mislead, and to spy on the campaign groups, and to "keep the enemy closer to them". They now propose to run with the fox, and hunt with the hounds, by setting up an ENVIRONMENTAL LAW DEPARTMENT to assist the members of the public who are concerned and weary and wary of being polluted by - the Environment Agency and those it purports to regulate. STRANGER THAN FICTION!

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