RUGBY TO BE WASTE DUMP 18 OCTOBER..

..AS INSULTATION PROCESS CONTINUES.
CEMEX REBUILD DEMOLISHED CHIMNEY.
WARWICK'S and IMPORTED 500,000 TONNES WASTE DUMPED ON DUPED RUGBY RESIDENTS - AS DUPLICITOUS COUNCILLORS POCKET & EXIT!!CEMEX STICKS OF ROCK for SUCKERS!
On Heritage Open Day!

INSULTATION PROCESS - OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS BUT ONCE as Cemex plans to double air quality and health impact on DOPEY RUGBY!!

While the Environment Council DIRECTS PUBLIC ATTENTION AWAY from MAJOR POLLUTION ISSUE using £25,000 from Rugby Council Tax Payers' Health Protection Budget, and PETTY cash from the Environment Agency and Cemex, as we ALL jointly try to find "a new way forward together". Look out for flying pigs, and what they drop! It seems there is an "IMMINENT desperate need" to re-organise the way Cemex and the Agency " liaise, communicate, and engage " with the Rugby community.

Stakeholder relations reached "an all time low", as the RCCF, was virtually destroyed and emasculated by RBC, EA, WCC and by Cemex in an ideal demonstration of "joint-working for the *good/BAD* of the community". Worse is yet to come as the "BIG FOUR" - a name coined for WCC, RBC, the EA and Cemex at the Workshop on 17th September - now collude and try even harder to dupe Rugby residents, by pretending to turn over a new leaf, while secretly planning more environmental disasters. See local press for stories and letters about the "Chameleons".

RUGBY STAKEHOLDERS have had enough of paying while being polluted, and under the polluter-MUST-pay principle need funding in order to obtain openness, honesty, joint fact finding, timely access to full validated data, a proper say in the activities in our environment, and a change in the status quo so that we are not only listened to, but also what we say has an impact on the outcomes. Call me a cynic, but these very spotty leopards are hardly prepared, willing or able to change their spots, and qualities such as these, (honesty?) have never ever been seen in Rugby. Just pass the sticks of Cemtex rock.

WASTE PLANT DOUBLES CO-INCINERATION
Two planning applications are on WCC web for Southam and Rugby's MALPASS proposed Parkfield Road waste plant, have already hit the buffers as the pre-application Scoping Assessment was for a plant 50% smaller than what is now being proposed. Warwickshire CC is firmly in the Waste Partnership with RBC and their BIG GAME PLAN is to "BURN IT ALL IN RUGBY" - to add in another 100% - 250,000 tonnes a year of REFUSE DERIVED FUEL. Meanwhile we can look forward to another 360 lorries or so on 20 kilometres of our local roads, which have many accidents involving 133 personal injury accidents in five years, of which 3 were fatalities and 37 serious. All this for a cement plant cum co-incinerator that never had an EIA, a lawful planning permission, a lawful operating permit and any meaningful public consultation of any kind. WCC is busying itself yet again with more retrospective planning permissions - this time to validate the unlawful fly tipping of 20,000+ tonnes a year of hazardous waste that has been going on at Southam under their watch for EIGHT years. With of course the blessing of that great protector of the environment - the Environment Agency.

THE ENVIRONMENT COUNCIL has taken Rugby residents eye of the ball, during this deliberately most untimely process, and is wondering how to build TRUST and CONFIDENCE in Rugby, doing its level best to improve relations, but Rugby people are sick of being treated as suckers, and would like to reclaim their town from the usurpers. After Monday's press release there is now to be a working party to try to put flesh on the bones of the skeleton future-engagement. But at the same time as we are paying for this, and engaging, Rugby is burning. Cemex was inviting a chosen few to the Southam open days 18-20 September, surprisingly and most disappointedly overlooking the obvious necessity of an invitation to the 60 delegates to see Cemex's plans for our futures! In yet another application to "enhance" our environment, air quality and health there is to be yet another 91 metre chimney to vent off the fumes and odours from the MBT/IHT plant and from the furnace required to tumble dry the Refuse Derived Fuel. They do not seem to have thought about the huge environmental impacts of the transport and processing - and even less about the impact of the increase in co-incineration at Rugby.

TRANSPORT: AND LAING RAIL REVIEW
WCC/Cemex have submitted an April 2004 report, ( see chapter 12 WCC web held in secret between Laing, WCC and Rugby Cement), into the feasibility of the railway being re-opened ONLY for the 160 clay lorries daily. Certainly now there is a plan to more than double the total HGVs going between Southam and Rugby with clay, and climafuel lorries then a new report into the disused railway should be carried out, and submitted. Obviously it will be much more economic and affordable now they are planning such a huge increase in lorry journeys, and will save the public and roads from millions of lorry miles, which cost so much in terms of accidents, risk, air pollution and damage to the roads, and other road users vehicles, and to the infrastructure.

It appears the Inspector and public were kept in the dark about this secret LAING report, at the Public Inquiry into the route of the Western Relief Road, which resulted in farmers being forced out of their land as the road was routed through the green belt because it was claimed the rail route was required for the Cement plant operations. The WRR was placed in the green belt, at a huge and ever-increasing cost, (£40 million up from the original £11 million), when there was a secret report in which there was no intention of re-opening the railway.

WCC CONSIDERED INSISTING RAILWAY RE-OPENSas a planning condition in 2004, so now they have another golden window of opportunity?
The canals have been ruled out as too costly, too slow and too many locks, Let the narrow gauge train take the strain? Or will it be the repetitious cry: "Alternative rail transport has been considered but without significant external funding, none IS OF economic consideration."

RUGBY ADVERTISER EDITOR'S VIEWPOINT:
INDEPENDENT CHAIR ESSENTIAL!
"It is a GOOD thing that the RCCF MAY be recreated as a new body - the current version is unworkable and ineffective."
The RCCF needs an independent chair, access to data, and the public need more access to meetings, an independent venue, trust, access to data, and the Editor criticises the Agency for their non-attendance - the vital ingredient - and for their NON- PROVISION of vital information.

CEMEX UNDER FIRE

AS SOUTHAM-RUGBY WAR CONTINUES….

TEMPERATURES RISE
WCC notes that “the previously jovial Southam Cement and lorry routing community liaison group has now become hostile” as WCC grants Cemex a new CLAY lorry route to and from Southam, causing COMPLAINTS and letters in the press from the village inhabitants. Residents of Marton , Princethorpe and Long Itchington suddenly awaken and realise their 3 villages will now endure all the (current) daily 140 Cemex clay HGVs , as the circular route limiting the number to just 35 is scrapped, and the 140 are now to be “in their back yards” on narrow dangerous roads they insist are “not fit for purpose”. They are not amused at having “just a taste” of what the Rugby New Bilton residents have suffered / had inflicted on them for years – over 70 lorries an hour at times, and an average of around 800 a day. Letters of congratulations and thanks can be sent to Warwickshire County Council planners and councillors, who have more tricks up their sleeves yet!

SOUTHAM WASTE PROCESSING PLANT
Temperatures have yet to reach fever pitch as locals in Southam and Rugby have still not realised the massive implications for them of the first of the two CEMEX WASTE/RECYCLING/CLIMAFUEL applications. The County Council and Cemex are trying to keep the two applications completely separate, and thus presumably to divide the community, to prey on the weakest and most vulnerable, to discourage any “joined up thinking”, and to avert any consideration of the BPEO - best practicable environmental option? Local people have just a month in which to voice their concerns about the first-proposed 360,000 tonne a year waste processing plant in the old cement plant at SOUTHAM.


PLENTY OF LANDFILLS AVAILABLE AT SOUTHAM
At least Southam has a massive ever increasing landfill, as they excavate the clay, about 2,000 tonnes each day, in which they then dump the hazardous waste bypass dust. Residues from their new “processing” can easily be dumped without having to transport all that back to Southam from Rugby. It appears several operational landfills are available which can take hazardous and non-hazardous waste – even though there is still no IPPC Permit for the site, which it is believed makes the landfills unlawful, operating in contravention of EU and UK Law, without a PPC permit!

LORRY TRAIN TO RUN NIGHT AND DAY SOUTHAM-RUGBY
A smaller scale application (see WCC web site Reference “NW 08CM032”) made to the County Council in August by RMC/Rugby Cement for a 120,000 tonne a year waste processing plant at COLESHILL needs 100 HGVs a day – so can the Southam/village residents look forward to another 300 lorries a day on top of the 140 they are so upset about? Or will there be even more as the HGVs convoy back and forth – as virtual “lorry trains” between Southam and Rugby? Why do they, and the County Council, go on ignoring the disused railway line, the availability of which was claimed by Rugby Cement to be one of the main reasons for building the plant in an urban area in Rugby instead of at any of the other available more suitable rural sites. Rugby Cement in 2000 (see WCC and RBC committee meetings on web) “saved” the railway route for its own future use, as it “forced” the Western Relief Road into the green belt, delaying the construction by 8 years, and costing the public purse £40 million instead of the £11 million quoted in 2000, and also polluting and poisoning Rugby residents, contributing to the high levels of particulate in the “hot spot lorry routes” and to the AQMA for Nitrogen dioxide, which affects health.


WASTE PLANT? IMPOSE IT ON POOR URBAN LONG-SUFFERERS!
Will the more powerful Southam residents and coalition of county councillors try to force the new waste plant, along with all the extra pollution from lorries and plant pollution into the RUGBY SMOKE LESS ZONE AIR QUALITY MANAGEMENT AREA, on to long-suffering down-town Rugby residents? After all it will ONLY be a grand total of 1100 juggernauts daily for New Bilton residents? What can it matter as in this area lives and the environment are already obscenely blighted by the CO-INCINERATOR – its emissions - uncontrolled/controlled - and fugitive pollution, “nuisance dust”, hovering, menacing plume/s, and low level point sources which remain unregulated and unmonitored. What does it matter if this already disadvantaged area gets more muck heaped on it? They are used to it.

ACCESS TO ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION DENIED
Where is the Sheriff when you need him? Questions and reasonable applications for access to environmental data, and even Freedom of Information requests, remain unanswered as the “outlaws”, the notorious Environment Agency, are “above the law.” The public and Rugby Cement Community Forum are refused access to environmental data by both the Environment Agency and Cemex, as they work together to “slip in all the applications between the meetings of the Forum” – so that no proper response is ever made. In this atmosphere of concealment and refusal to co-operate, how can community relations improve?

Trials and “waste burning” experiments go on and on, year in year out, as the trials are extended without the public’s or RCCF’s knowledge, and presumably outside of the PPC Permit and its conditions. There are endless variations and secret negotiations going as the back-slapping “back room boys” meet at the OK Corral. Any person who asks pertinent questions, and who understands the issues, is slapped down, labelled as a trouble maker, ejected from meetings, and threatened with ASBOs, and worse. Now the search is on by Cemex, the EA, WCC, and RBC for a “new” malleable Community Forum, to be peopled by “no brainers!”

SEVENTEENTH SEPTEMBER GANG TO MEET AT BENN HALL RUGBY
On 17 September the experienced ENVIRONMENT COUNCIL will attempt to facilitate an evening of “cordial discussion” and of “shaping the future for the community engagement process around the cement works in Rugby.” You can find the report under discussion on their web site. We nervously wish them well, as under their auspices Cemex, the Environment Agency, WCC and RBC will meet with about 40 delegates in a battle for pole position, as the “warring factions” (see Rugby Times articles) have their heads banged together.

“CONTINUED EXPOSURE TO A DUSTY ENVIRONMENT will generally result in receptors becoming less sensitive to dusty impacts and an acceptance of a certain level of dust deposition.” So there we have it, in a nutshell, dump more dust on folk and they will give up complaining? The WCC/Coleshill application NW 08CM032 is full of such little gems, and it also contains RMC’s own May 2003 assessment of how “nuisance dust”, that they NEVER acknowledged existed in the Rugby Cement application for IPPC, is a very difficult issue. So why was there never ANY dust assessment for the Rugby Cement plant – considering all its Low Level Point Sources and fugitive emissions? Because they did not want anyone to know!

LITTLE GEMS ON MINERAL DUST FROM RUGBY CEMENT/RMC 2003 that somehow “slipped their mind to tell Rugby residents in their application?”

“Road traffic can be a significant source of dust in urban areas.” – especially from 1,000 lorries each day! “Dust is defined as particulate matter in the size range 1-75 microns.” “Accurate and reliable quantitative prediction of dust impacts is accepted to be very difficult principally because dust emissions depend on a wide range of factors many of which are site specific and vary from day to day.” “Deposition of particles causes soiling on windows and cars and is considered a nuisance. In addition occasional clouds of dust can cause a visual and sensory nuisance.” “Attitude surveys undertaken by the department of the Environment have indicated that in terms of nuisance to nearby residents continual or severe concerns about dust are most likely to be experienced near to dust sources.” “Nuisance dust in the community is normally perceived as an accumulated deposit, however the point at which an individual makes a complaint is highly subjective.” “Wind direction from the South West occurs most of the time and will cover areas to the North and East.” “Particles greater than 30 microns will deposit within approximately 100 metres of the source, while 10-30 microns will travel 200-500 metres and small particles less than 10 microns can travel up to 1 kilometre” into Rugby town centre?

“LET SLEEPING DOGS LIE” was a County Councillor’s response to the question as to whether Rugby residents should be informed of the massive increase in size of the Rugby cement plant. While the Environment Agency said they only got away with it in Rugby because there had been “no intelligent opposition!” Is it now a case of one bitten twice shy – or will they dump it on RUGBY once again?

Who cares in Rugby?

>
Recent Comment:

Dear Lillian,

I can't tell you how much I admire you courage on this issue. You are a true hero to the citizens of Rugby. Unfortunately I believe, after speaking to officers like Sean Lawson, that the Borough Council can't actually do anything. The EA is at the whim of big business too.

The way forward must be the ballot box. I am so pleased you will be contesting Rugby at the next General Election. We need more Ind Cllrs on RBC, this may come about in the next few years because an "all out" system of electing our Cllrs may come into being. I have always believed this makes Ind Cllrs more likely.

Fight on and be strong,

Paul Holdsworth

Thank You Paul, you don't realise how much your comment means to me. I am more used to receiving comments of support through my email and letters in the press, and sometimes think that the little comment box beneath goes unnoticed.

Thank You for taking the time.
Lilian.

TROOPS TAKE OVER CEMEX !

AS RUGBY AND VENEZUELA ENJOY CEM-EXPERIENCE!
FAULTY TOWER PLANS FAMILY FUN DAY.
AT CO-INCINERATOR HERITAGE SITE!

Rugby Cemex plans "happy family fun day", with "friends of the kiln club" membership, (half price for juniors and OAPs), and with a Victorian theme as small children are pushed up chimney carrying brushes.

Meanwhile adults enjoying the CEM-EXperience, where it snows every day, will have hair automatically grey-streaked, and will buy raffle tickets for a chance to use the carbon dioxide blasters, to unblock kiln. Eat dust-coated popcorn, play dodgems with HGVs, and "bash a kiln rat", with Basil and resident Manuel, banging them over the head with a bit of 2 by 4 when they pop out of the kiln or any other emission release points. JOHN CLEESE is invited to inaugurate.

All this is completely FREE, along with a HERITAGE visit to the EIGHT year old co-incinerator plant on 11 September for 40 lucky residents, as part of Rugby's celebration of Rugby's magnificent achievement : "historical/ hysterical 8 year-old co-incinerator heritage!"

Surely this is not a cunning ploy, an attempt to woo Rugby residents, who are apparently TPO on a grand scale with CEMEX RUGBY.

Ideas are flooding in, " for hours of fun for old and young", as Alton Towers looks set to go out of business in the face of such grandiose pleasurable opportunities.

VENEZUELAN TROOPS
RE-NATIONALISED Cemex cement 19 August by force after Cemex refused to accept a "reasonable offer" , after negotiations with CEMEX reached nowhere! Troops seized control of Cemex's plants and offices as workers at the factory cheered and waved in approval.


CEMEX asked for $1.3 billion in compensation for relinquishing control of its plants which account for HALF of Venezuela's total cement, after the government issued a tax bill for $37 million, as takeover talks hit rough weather. Now Cemex will have to settle for a low deal, while the government paid $552 million for an 85% stake in HOLCIM SWITZERLAND, and $265 million for 89% shares in LAFARGE FRANCE.

VENEZUELA BLAMES CEMEX
for exporting TOO much of its local output that denied enough cement for its local consumption, and prevented the provision for home-building and infrastructure targets for providing housing for the poor.

The socialist government has already taken oil, and telecommunications, a bank and a steel company, from private hands. The takeover bill for the cement companies may yet reach $3 billion - as reported in international press today. But Cemex may have a silver-lining as its $19 billion debt from the takeover of RINKER Australia last year could be reduced (by $?) IF they get a "reasonable compensation".

RUMOURS UNCONFIRMED
as yet, suggest that the troops may be invited to take-over Rugby plant - but so far this remains unconfirmed. Other rumours suggest a £1 a ticket raffle for the whole Rugby plant, though some say this is excessive, and that 50p a ticket would be more realistic.

HAND OF GOD STRIKES RUGBY AGAIN!

AS PERIODS OF CALM, AND LOW WIND SPEEDS INCREASE DUST/PARTICULATE IN RUGBY!


CEMEX AND RUGBY RESIDENTS CAUGHT OUT BY WEATHER, AND KILN, AND BY LOW EXIT VELOCITY, YET AGAIN!


IT ONLY TAKES TWO MINUTES TO SMOTHER AN AREA 800 METRES SOUTH SOUTH WEST IN DUST?

CEMEX ADMIT DUST IS INEVITABLE IN NOTIFICATION OF UNAUTHORISED BREACH: WHY DID BAG FILTERS NOT WORK?
WHAT FUEL WERE THEY BURNING?


EXCESSIVE EMISSIONS: 22nd April 2008, of clinker dust from KILN FLUSH 05:38 to 05:43. "Kiln off - stopped at 05:35 by the operator to "minimise environmental impact" , "after a lump fell into the kiln which did not clear using the normal blasting and jetting procedures." Cemex decided NOT to report the fugitive emissions at an "AVERAGED" (??) 357 milligrams/357,000 MICROGRAMS each cubic metre, because they did not believe the fugitive releases, which breached the operating Permit, had reached the "wider world". Unfortunately for Cemex at least five wide-awake residents in FROBISHER ROAD reported that their cars were covered in dust.

WHAT HAPPENED?
QUOTE: "In the hour of 0500 to 0600 a lump fell into the kiln inlet which did not clear using normal blasting and jetting techniques. The kiln controller immediately stopped the kiln as per normal operating procedures. As the lump cleared it was holding back some raw materials which then passed through the kiln system after the kiln had been stopped. Elevated particulate emissions occurred for the five minutes at a lower than normal flow rate through the main stack after the kiln had been stopped."

FROBISHER ROAD COMPLAINTS:
"During this period the wind direction monitor indicated a variable wind direction, that for NO MORE THAN TWO MINUTES was in the direction of Frobisher Road. The wind speed was LOW, less than 2 mph. The only possible explanation is that due to the LOWER FLOW and VERY CALM WEATHER conditions the PARTICULATES will NOT have DISPERSED effectively as under 'normal operations' but were deposited in Frobisher Road.

PRE-HEATER KILNS CHARACTERISTIC:
Build-ups such as this are characteristic of a pre-heater system and are 'effectively' (??) ,managed by checking and clearing. CEMEX have made various improvements since the kiln was first commissioned (and since the 250 stops/starts in 2005??) by the installation of extra blasters in the COMBUSTION CHAMBER".

WHAT NOW?
The usual pay off: "CEMEX has written to residents (ONLY those) that made contact regarding 'dust nuisance' and offered reimbursement for cleaning cars."
Cemex claim: "Kiln flushes are rare and are IN THIS CASE small in nature. It would unfortunately appear that, on this occasion (we were caught out by!) CALM WEATHER conditions resulted in a limited nuisance for a small area of local residents. It is NOT possible to guarantee that a fall of this nature will not happen in the future. However, the management procedures already in place, and techniques used, 'are considered BAT' to MINIMISE the risk of this event.

SEVERAL OTHER RECENT TEST FAILURES:
frequently cement mills for excessive particulate: main stack for dioxins and furans; particulate; cadmium and thallium: 'climafuel' for excessive lead and chromium: bypass dust for increased dioxins;

SENSITIVE ISSUES AND CONTENTIOUS SITES:
WHAT DOES THE AGENCY DO?
They have little meetings in which they discuss how to silence the people who genuinely ask for information, by having them labelled as "vexatious complainants", in accordance with the EA's Complaints and Commendations Policy. They are very worried about how to thwart any Freedom of Information requests - "we are discussing how we will deal with such requests."

WHY IS RUGBY SUCH A HUGE PROBLEM?
Apart from the obvious: i.e . the unlawful construction of an old-fashioned environmentally disastrous semi-wet process 2 million tonne a year cement plant in an urban area's smokeless zone; which then 'morphed' into a 600 tonne a day waste-burning CO-INCINERATOR without any valid planning permission, without a valid IPC or valid IPPC operating permit, without any public consultation; ALL in contravention of the UK's own laws, EIA Directive, PPC Directive, Aarhus Convention and Public Participation Directive; AND apart from the afore mentioned also the obvious problems of emissions, pollution, hundreds of lorries each day. loss of amenity, visual, pollution episodes, air quality and health impact (health in ALL senses of the word!) also there is the POLITICAL climate in Rugby, according to the EA.

EA AND POLITICAL ISSUES:
"We have fully briefed JEREMY WRIGHT CONSERVATIVE Member of Parliament for Rugby and Kenilworth. RBC is a 'hung council and its political leadership has changed 3 times in the last 5 years. One third of the Borough Councillors are up for re-election in the May 2006 local government elections. This presents a challenge to all involved!" And now that the Tories have gained more seats? Since when did health and air quality become a political football?

FOOTNOTE ON LORRIES!
WAST PLANT CONTROVERSY AT SOUTHAM:
The £35 million 1,000 tonne a day proposed waste processing plant seems to be having a lot of trouble already. The Rugby Observer 7th August said it would need an extra 69 lorries going in each day - and presumably then going out making 138 extra journeys to bring in all the waste from across the county? And then an extra 48 lorries to take the waste/RDF/Climafuel to Cemex Rugby for burning; presumably them returning making 96 in all. So at Southam it seems there would be an extra 234 each day? On top of the "usual" 140 clay lorries which ply between Southam and Rugby. making a grand total of 378 movements each day?

AT RUGBY:
The £35 million 1,000 tonne a day proposed waste processing plant if built at RUGBY would only, according to Cemex and the Evening Telegraph 5th August, need "about 11 extra loads a day"?

Anyone confused?

CEMEX SHOWS TRASH PLANS

1,000 TONNES A DAY
ONLY 11 EXTRA LORRIES!

Telegraph: "Cemex admitted the development would mean more lorries accessing the site - with about 11 extra loads a day." This follows on from many years of rows about the many hundreds of incessant Rugby Cement/Cemex lorries that Warwickshire County Council has permitted to pass unrestricted through New Bilton every day, and night, massively impacting on the lives and amenity of all local residents - not to mention the heavily pitted surfaces on the Lawford Road, in the Air Quality Management Area - traffic fumes!

Now a novel solution is to be found. The old cement plant had an average of about 80 small 20-tonne 2-axil lorry movements each day, but the County Council then gave planning permission for 800 40-tonne six-axil juggernauts, to go in and out of the site daily. They called this a "cement works upgrade!" Presumably in order to appease local residents and to prevent further complaints, and to cut down the number of lorry movements, the HGVs are to be made bigger - carrying approximately 100 tonne each? The good news is "Cemex also promised there'd be no increase in noise or emissions levels." Super quiet, massive lorries, with no emissions, as well! Great!

PLAN B. IS TO RE-OPEN THE RAILWAY
instead of having lorry trains? 27 May 2002 RMC write to the Environment Agency: "Traffic clearly is a planning issue. In a general sense we appreciate local concerns over traffic. It is our preference that the works become rail connected. We have had discussions with both parties - Strategic Rail Authority and Railtrack. We will work towards a viable solution for rail connecting the works if one is achievable. This would relieve traffic issues significantly." Shame they actually built a bagging plant on the actual rail connection that had always gone into the works! When? Not quite last week, but after they started building the new plant in 1996! Anyone know any planners - the County and Cemex both need more than a bit of help?

WASTE FACTORY BID FOR RUGBY
RUGBY TIMES : front page 5 August. "Cemex has unveiled plans to build a waste processing plant at its factory in Rugby. Pre-treated rubbish known as Climafuel is currently being imported from London and Wales to burn as a trial replacement for coal. But now the firm wants to manufacture it on-site IF it wins permission to burn the household and industrial waste permanently. A similar application has also been submitted for the firm's old cement works site at Southam, but only one would be built if both were approved by the County Council."

RUGBY'S OWN 42,000 TONNES
rubbish produced by the entire Borough each year is not enough! The Cemex factory can burn 15 tph, 360 tonnes a day, 125,000 tonne each year of RDF Refuse Derived Fuel. "The £35 million plant would import into Rugby urban area 360,000 tons a year of Warwickshire's (?) raw trash, sifting out 250,000 tons of non-recyclable wood, plastic, paper, textile, and card to make Climafuel. Cemex claims the processing is safe and that Climafuel eases pressure on landfill and creates fewer emissions." 125,000 tonnes of ready-made Climafuel will also be imported to be blended in.

DEPRIVED AREA, POOR AIR QUALITY
"Rugby is already an air quality management area for nitrogen dioxide. Also in various parts of the town, but particularly around the cement plant, there are high levels of particulate emissions. New Bilton and Newbold are already areas of deprivation. They shouldn't have more and more dumped on them!" says Rugby in Plume. Ian Southcott Cemex community affairs manager said: "Any odours are retained within the facility. The operation would be regulated and closely MONITORED by the ENVIRONMENT AGENCY!" Just as they "monitor" the cement works eh? That's all right then?
NOT! Just one monitor on the main stack that only works when the raw feed
gets up to 200 tonnes an hour - and no monitors on the other 15 or so small stacks? Or if there are monitors the data is not for the public to see.

FACTORY PLAN TRIGGERS CONCERNS
says Warwickshire Telegraph 5 August. County Councillor John Appleton said he would seek reassurances for the 16 acre factory at Southam quarry, as "this will have an impact on all residents living in the SOUTHAM area." The multi-national corporation aims to produce 250,000 tonnes every year from 300,000 tonnes of household, commercial, and industrial waste. In addition they would blend in another 125,000 tonnes of imported Climafuel brought in from other manufacturers outside the county.

MRS P FIGHTS FOR POOR AND PROPER CONSULTATION
Mrs P was quoted "Why don't they hand in both applications at the same time? I think they are trying to draw the process out so that people will lose interest and not bother fighting. The problem in Rugby is that people in the most deprived wards will be affected. The poorest areas are situated nearby down wind of the proposed site."

RUGBY REJECTS MORE DARK SATANIC MILLS as the BUTCHERS pet food factory application in Rugby, was thrown out, after no less than a record-breaking 21 Rugby Councillors deigned to attend: "We already have one dark satanic mill in Rugby - we will not allow another chimney - and no more pollution!" So where are these caring councillors now?
But of course this decision is in the hands of the ever-so experienced WCC REGULATORY
Committee - 'secret site visits', 'nodding through', and 'retrospective' are their forte!

PUBLIC INQUIRY might just provide the answer to the 35 million pound question:
SOUTHAM or RUGBY?

I'M NOT ON MY OWN

MAYBE SMOKESCREEN, OR DUST, THAT MAKES PEOPLE INVISIBLE TO ENVIRONMENT AGENCY?

RUGBY TIMES 29 JULY
She was told she was on her own, but Cemex campaigner Lilian Pallikaropoulos has proof it's not a one-woman crusade. Lilian said she was accused of being "the only one who cares" about tyre-burning at the Lawford Road plant. Now she has hit back with thousands of names on a petition.


She said: "They say I'm the only one who is bothered but we've got 8,000 signatures on this petition and I didn't even collect them, so I wasn't exactly forcing people to sign it!

Some of the public did stop paying attention, and naturally you will if you're being treated like dirt!"

Lilian added that Rugby in Plume would take its battle against the Environment Agency for approving tyre-burning to the European Commission, despite a £100,000 personal legal bill after the case was thrown out by the House of Lords. She said : "I feel very depressed at times but we have got to keep going!"

DEMOLITION PROGRAM CENSORED!
Funny too how Rugby Cement was nominated by very many people (I had only one vote!) for the competition to identify the "worst most ugly harmful building in the country", and came fifth over all. BUT, despite two days of filming in Rugby the program was "censored", and Rugby Cement was not allowed to be discussed, and the the film was not shown! The reason? It was said that it was not permitted to show it because it is "an industrial building"! So where did it ever say in the competition that the rules excluded industrial buildings? Northampton bus station was allowed to be discussed, and that film was shown - another industrial building.

HUNDREDS OF LETTERS IN PRESS
While I do write the "occasional" missive to the press I am not the ONLY person who writes, as people in Rugby well know. But pathetically the Agency selectively cuts out bits of the local papers to "influence" the judges decisions. "Now look what she has done!"

HEALTH PROTECTION AGENCY
Yet more and more reports on cement plants - co-incinerating waste.
Why is that then if no-one is interested?


BRITISH SOCIETY FOR ECOLOGICAL MEDICINE
Has regularly updated reports on the impact of emissions from cement co-incinerators.

See LINK: www.ecomed.org.uk


RUGBY HEALTH PROTECTION BUDGET USED:
ENVIRONMENT AGENCY PAYING TO CONSULT:
FUNNY isn't it how the Agency, that claims to the Lords that "no-one cares about the continuing operation of the cement works," is jointly funding the Reports, and Meetings and Workshops with the ENVIRONMENT COUNCIL as facilitator with the "Rugby community", as part of "stakeholder engagement". Yes that is right - meetings and workshops for those people who care not a jot? The money from Rugby Borough Council is ACTUALLY a £15,000 contribution from the HEALTH PROTECTION BUDGET! But no-one in Rugby cares about health - according to the Agency!

NOW LET THAT BE A LESSON TO YOU!

MRS P - AN EXAMPLE TO THE PUBLIC? DO NOT DARE TO QUESTION THE AGENCY!
OR ELSE!

PUBLIC to SPEAK OUT IN RUGBY: ARE ENVIRONMENT AGENCY CLAIMS TRUE OR FALSE?

The RUGBY ADVERTISER reported 24th July that: QUOTE: "The Environment Agency believes Lilian Pallikaropoulos is the ONLY person interested in pursuing legal action, and that the public should not pick up the bill.

Mrs Pallikaropoulos argued in the high Court and House of Lords earlier this year that the Environment Agency has hidden vital information from the public when they gave Rugby Cement permission to burn tyres in Rugby.

And although the House of Lords said the EA showed "real shortcomings" they ultimately sided with the EA, and disagreed that the plant in Lawford Road Rugby should stop burning the alternative fuel, and even close down. The EA have this week said Mrs Pallikaropoulos should pay all its legal costs on her own.

Mrs Pallikaropoulos told the Advertiser: "It is grossly unfair, and totally untrue, what the Agency has done to me by saying that I am the only person in Rugby who cares." The case against the EA had originally been brought to the court under the name of Rugby resident David Edwards with the backing of legal aid. But the EA argued that this was just a smokescreen so Mrs Pallikaropoulos could bring her own "private campaign" to court, and not pay the costs.
60,000 RUGBY RESIDENTS INVISIBLE TO AGENCY?

In a report by the EA lawyers it stated: "No one who actually lives near the works appears willing to continue the proceedings. In fact local residents other than Mrs Pallikaropoulos have failed to display any continuing interest in operations at the Rugby Cement works. In essence these proceedings constitute one relatively affluent and "committed" individual's own private campaign."
UNQUOTE

WE HAVE WAYS OF MAKING YOU TALK! AND IF YOU DON'T, WE WILL SAY THAT YOU DID!

TAKE PART IN OUR TRUE OR FALSE?

1. "Mrs P sought out David Edwards as a claimant."
The Agency quotes newspaper cuttings as 'proof and evidence' that I have 'most definitely' done this 'seeking out'.

2. She says she was "acting ostensibly on behalf of Rugby residents. Those residents were concerned about the likely impact of emissions from the plant. Those concerns cannot easily be equated with the public interest issues...."

3. However even if residents' concerns can be equated to "the public interest" the extent of those concerns in the present case is questionable."

4. The appellant says "that the permit in question aroused very substantial concern and controversy from residents and public bodies including Rugby Borough Council, and that she was acting in an almost entirely altruistic fashion so the matter could come before the courts". However there is no evidence of widespread public support of the case in Rugby or elsewhere."

5. It is respectfully submitted that the public's lack of response to consultations on more recent Agency determinations is more indicative of actual levels of actual interest."

6. Mrs P "put up the claimant David Edwards to secure funding"... and "in essence these proceedings constitute one relatively affluent and committed individual's private campaign."

7. In her submission she 'says' she has funded her costs before the Lords out of a legacy and that she will be put to serious hardship if she also has to pay the Respondents' costs.

8. Mrs P claims this is a "serious deterrent to access to justice".
Mrs P argues that the Respondenst should be denied their 'reasonable costs' and that these should fall instead upon the tax payer.

9. As regards the EU Directive as regards costs 2003/35/EC provides that any such procedure should be fair, equitable, timely and not prohibitively expensive.

10. Mrs P says the UK has failed to properly implement the requirements of the directive and this will be disputed by the government. The cost of litigating environmental issues in the UK is "minimised by inter alia" the availability of legal aid, and of the protective costs orders. The fact that in any event these were not available to Mrs P in the circumstances of this particular appeal does not undermine the Government's position in that regard."

11. Mrs P decided to take over the case from Mr Edwards and she was well aware of the risks that this involved. It can hardly be said that the costs would be a serious deterrent to access to justice.

12. The only part of the case where she has succeeded is in "the simple procedural irregularity by the Agency." and this is 'ONLY a breach of the common law rules of fairness' by the Agency in failing to disclose the AQMAU reports.

13. SO, in other words, deceiving the public, misleading and failing to disclose the MOST DAMGING DATA about the emissions and health impact is all right by us!

ENGAGING IN COMMUNITY RELATIONS?

OR FLOGGING A DEAD HORSE?

Yet more "sham" "pretend" "meaningless" public "consultations", perhaps "invented" to keep Rugby residents off the streets, and busy, as our time, money and energy are all squandered in yet more abuse of process. WHAT MEANINGFUL OUTCOME CAN THERE POSSIBLY BE?

RUGBY CEMENT COMMUNITY FORUM
60,000 residents involved in cement plant STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT.
Rugby Borough Council awarded £15,000 from the existing HEALTH PROTECTION BUDGET, and with Cemex and the Environment Agency jointly engaged THE ENVIRONMENT COUNCIL to undertake a review of stakeholder and community relations around the Rugby Cement Plant, and to make recommendations on potential ways forward.

"We did this by gathering information and feedback from a range of stakeholder and community members, through one on one telephone interviews. We then analysed this information, identified emerging themes and have made a series of observations and recommendations, all of which are included in the attached report."
The report is being simultaneously released to the funders of the review (CEMEX, the Environment Agency and Rugby Borough Council) and stakeholder and community members. It will also be available on The Environment Council's website at: http://www.the-environment-council.org.uk/rugby-cement-plant-stakeholder-engagement-review.html, Rugby Borough Council's website at: www.rugby.gov.uk and CEMEX's website at: www.cemex.co.uk

"In order to give all stakeholders (including funders) an opportunity to respond to the report and its recommendations, and give feedback, The Environment Council will be convening a workshop in late June.
The report and its recommendations are The Environment Council's advice, based on long experience of best practice engagement, on the optimal approaches and methods to apply to achieving robust, transparent and open stakeholder and community engagement. Acting on these recommendations may entail resource commitments and CEMEX, the Environment Agency and Rugby Borough Council will need to take a joint view on the best way to proceed."

"One of the key purposes of the workshop is to allow all interested parties to contribute their views and feedback specifically on the report and its recommendations, which will help inform decisions about future steps. The workshop will focus on gaining feedback on the report, and won't focus on issue-based questions such as activity currently going on around the cement plant, potential future resource implications, or reiterating information that has already been considered in the formulation of the report and its recommendations."

WAIT A MOMENT - IT DOES NOT ADD UP!
IS THIS THE SAME ENVIRONMENT AGENCY THAT SAYS "NO-ONE BUT LILIAN IS BOTHERED ABOUT THE CEMENT WORKS IN RUGBY!"

TYRE TRIALS CONSULTATION, or ABUSE OF PUBLIC?
Rugby residents are now to comment to Cemex on the "draft 6 tonnes and hour tyre trial report", but with what aim in mind? Year after year we "being consulted", bombarded even, by yet ever more SHAM, time-wasting, costly, soul-destroying, meaningless, false promises of public participation! Rugby Borough Council paid out £10,000 to a facilitator to produce the Tyre Burning Review Group's damning report on 3 tonnes and hour, which the Council endorsed! But to what effect? Perhaps they should look up the definition of "consultation" in a dictionary?

"PUT UP AND SHUT UP!"would be much more honest, and "business as usual!" End now the "tick boxes", of "community engagement"! The Environment Agency, RBC, WCC and Rugby Cement have well and truly flogged the dead horse of consultation in Rugby.

But here we go again - residents are to be consulted on the waste plant?

HA! HA! HA!

HORSE TRADING

BEGINS AT SOUTHAM AND RUGBY.
SECTION 106 PRICE TAG?
WHAT AM I BID?
WASTE PROCESSING PLANT
Southam and Rugby parallel applications due in any day. Focus is now on the "delicate negotiations" no doubt going on in the back room between Cemex and the County Council. What SECTION 106 payment will be offered in order to make "WHAT WOULD OTHERWISE BE UNACCEPTABLE, ACCEPTABLE"?

DEAL, OR NO DEAL?
So far, unsurprisingly, the County and Borough councils have refused to answer any questions about this current "negotiating process", and have failed to make it transparent. What price will be put on our heads, and who will decide what is acceptable, and who gets to keep the Section 106 cash? Rugby residents are still smarting, (and will until the cement plant is demolished), from the last County "sell out", when Rugby's environment, amenity, air quality and health, was compromised and traded by the County Council in the 1996 deal, that breached Community Law - had no Environmental Impact Assessment, or public consultation. All for a paltry £500,000 as a "contribution" towards Rugby Cement's Western Relief Road. (Later things were made worse when the relevant air quality impact and other related data was concealed by the Agency, County and Borough Council as they jointly turned the cement works into a co-incinerator without following the due IPC and IPPC and EIA process.) This pittance, (as that was what it was even at that time!) as all recall, was then put in the bank at WCC and the annual interest paid to Rugby Cement, as they argued over the route, putting it in the green belt to "conserve" the route for Rugby Cement, until the "sell by date" expired, and the pittance was due to be returned, unspent, in February 2006. Council officials are tight-lipped about the location of this illicit fund. Did they pay it back or not?

SINK TOWN?
And even more tight lipped about how the County has devalued the whole of Rugby, causing it to become a sink town, where people are afraid to speak up, some for fear of persecution by the authorities and others for fear of damaging the marketability of their property. Thousands now have to live next to a massive unlawfully built co-incinerator, which emits about one million cubic metres of polluting gas each hour from the main stack, and many hundreds of thousands of cubic metres of polluted particulate-laden air from the unmonitored Low Level Point Sources, with no fail-safe mechanisms, (even the much-heralded bag filters do not work 100% of the time, are not on the emissions from all the sources fed into the main stack for dispersion, and they are bypassed,) getting on for 1,000 juggernauts a day, and a massive polluting plume highly visible all winter. No wonder the powers-that-be want to keep this all "under wraps!"

RAILWAY OR CANAL?
The delay in construction caused by the interminable discussion about whether the Southam Rugby railway should be re-opened to connect the two Cemex sites of Southam and Rugby has cost the public, so far, £26,000,000 in EXTRA construction costs alone. And untold other costs in terms of traffic jams and dangerous pollution, social services, and NHS costs in terms of the health impact in the poor air quality in Rugby. Now they want to increase pollution in an area that is already DEPRIVED, over-polluted, and with pockets of ill health and social and health inequalities. Meanwhile Cemex and the County both make the hilarious suggestion of using the canals to transport the 2,000 tonnes a day of clay to Rugby, but the Waterways Board says this is impossible, a non-starter, with all the locks, and have pointed out that "err! the canals do not even go to the cement works - err!" So that brings us back to the railway again - that has been conserved by WCC and Rugby Cement specifically in order to transport the clay - and now the waste from the Waste Processing plant shortly to be constructed at Southam?

CONTROVERSIAL GAGGING ORDER!
THE WORDS CEMEX/RUGBY CEMENT BANNED!
The Rugby Advertiser 26 June reports that the chattering classes are at it again with their "whispering campaign" to gag me, to shut me up! They are determined to allow no discussion, and to keep other people from hearing my all too pertinent, awkward, revealing questions, which cause them such pain! Long Lawford Parish Council joins RBC and WCC (and the EA) and will not allow the public, (even their own parishioners), and those who they are supposed to serve, to ask any questions about Cemex, its plans and its operations. They all jump on the banning-band-wagon, and shout "Shoot the messenger!" A vain attempt to silence me!
PATHETIC!

RUGBY COUNCIL LEADER'S CONSIDERED RESPONSE

WHEN ASKED TO STOP SHOOTING THE MESSENGER!
AND RESTORE DEMOCRACY IN RUGBY:
GET RID OF ONE PARTY CONTROL SYSTEM:
OPEN DEBATE ABOUT WHERE THIS TOWN IS GOING!

OPEN ACCESSIBLE COUNCIL? HARDLY!
Rugby needs a PUBLIC INQUIRY into the new Cemex planning applications that are to be submitted in July in parallel at Warwickshire County Council for one, or two?, 365,000 tonne waste processing plants. Also a full environmental impact assessment for the cumulative impact of the existing cement plant, the EMISSIONS from the waste burning permutations, and newly proposed 365,000 tonne waste processing plant with its vents and chimney and huge increase in lorries and pollution.

LIST OF RUGBY CEMENT/CEMEX DONATIONS TO BE MADE PUBLIC?
Perhaps for the public record and scrutiny we could have a list of these "timely" donations, and the key persons involved, and how donations might "cloud their decision-making ability"? Recent examples are £150,000 for Church Lawford,
and a £22,500 mini-bus which saw a well-known councillor feature in the Cemex Community Matters newsletter, proudly beaming away as he clutched the keys. Who knows how this may have "encouraged" the widely proclaimed and public support of Cemex, and their plans to burn hundreds of tonnes of waste each day in the Cemex co-incinerator, when he warmly thanked them for their 2nd June 2006 presentation, and said "If we don't get hysterical we can get this through."


OFFICERS AND COUNCILLORS IN DENIAL? The facts should be made known, and questions answered about the alleged maladministration that has been going on over many years, at both WCC and RBC, involving both officers and councillors. The councillors have either been involved in this malpractice, or have "looked away", and in either case they have not done their jobs properly, and have not been supervising or reigning in the wayward officers, who have not carried out their duties correctly.


WARWICKSHIRE COUNCIL OFFICERS:
in 1996 "silenced" Mr Underhill, Chief Planning Officer at RBC. WCC officers actually wrote, (WCC files and I have copies), that, for pecuniary motives (signing first of a section 106 agreement), they had persuaded him not to speak up at the meeting with Rugby Cement, when he had insisted that the plans for the new cement plant and the photo montages were DECEPTIVE, and did not show the TRUE IMPACT, and that the construction of the plant would DESTROY the whole town of Rugby for generations to come! "I think we have persuaded Haywood not to speak until after we have signed the Section 106 agreement," before it goes to planning committee, and then it will be too late for him to say anything!


RUGBY BOROUGH OFFICERS FOOLED
the public in 1999 when they engaged, in secret, in the "Rugby Cement IPC application" process, to which Rugby's Environmental Health Office, in grave dereliction of duty, made no response to the consultation, concealed it from the councillors, and public, and made no attempt whatsoever to minimise and limit the pollution and impact from this cement factory. They then refused to answer any questions about this deception and finally admitted what RBC had done, and then
were reported in the press as saying "those responsible for this were either dead or retired" but would not say who they were, who had acted against Rugby residents best interests. Are those people now receiving a pension?

RUGBY COUNCIL WANTS WASTE BURNING?
as it rushed through officers own personal comments under "assumed delegated power": e.g. the WCC/Cemex bag filter application, without any involvement with Councillors - presumably in an attempt to get as much waste burnt in Rugby as possible? The Environment Agency's Public Register concealed
in RBC EHO office said that the Cemex plant would close if it could not fit the bag filters in order to burn the waste, as it would become uncompetitive, being restricted to coal burning only. Without the bag filters
it would not be able to meet the WASTE INCINERATION DIRECTIVE emission limits for co-incinerating waste cement plants. Warwickshire County Council decided to grant the planning permission without any environmental impact assessment, consideration of the true impact on Rugby, its air quality, health, and without due consideration of the letters from the public and from lawyers, and without any consultation with Rugby Councillors.


TOWN NEEDS TO DECIDE WHERE IT IS GOING AND WHAT IS IN BEST INTEREST!
Is this Council damaging the town and the future, and failing to improve Rugby children's life chances? WCC set up these "Locality panels" adding yet another layer of bureaucracy at huge cost to the rate payers, and with what benefit? While discussion is commendable there needs to be some joined-up thinking and action, as we are one town, and need an overall plan. Should these panels be used for PROPAGANDA?
Dunchurch locality panel at Flecknoe saw Cemex gave its "deceptive" presentation on the waste plant applications for Southam and /or Rugby (only your black bin rubbish my foot?!) to a handful of folk, were unable to ask many questions, and were hurried along.


CLASSICAL MUSIC TO FRIGHTEN AWAY YOUTHS!
At 19th March meeting of Rugby Town West Locality Panel the Committee at the High School suggested they play classical music outside the Kingsway shops to frighten away teenagers by exposing them to "culture" in such a way as to make them ashamed to be hanging about there. All this at Public expense, and organised by whom, and for what purpose?

RBC CONSULTATION :
PUBLIC DEBATE ABOUT RESTORING DEMOCRACY IN COUNCIL:
It is recognised that too much one-sided control is a very dangerous thing, that "absolute power corrupts", and it is widely held view that this Council is not being run properly, with officers seizing too much delegated power, and not being held to account.

Shall we now, having learnt from past mistakes, re-examine the unwise decision to hand all power to the TORY party, in the Cabinet system, and to open up the debate and try to get democracy restored to the Council, which used to work much better when it had meaningful representation from all parties? RBC have been asking people what they
think about the Council - so now is the chance to make amends!

NOT ONE, BUT TWO HOUSEHOLD" WASTE PLANTS!

CEMEX ANNOUNCES SIMULTANEOUS APPLICATIONS EARLY JULY
YOU WILL HAVE AT LEAST 12 WEEKS:
Addressing about 20 people on June 5th at the Dunchurch "Locality" panel in the tiny village of Flecknoe Cemex, making a presentation, announced that the two applications for the MBT PROCESSING OF HOUSEHOLD WASTE would be submitted about two weeks apart, in order to assist Warwickshire County Council - but the applications would be regarded as simultaneous. "Both have merits" - Long Itchington (Southam) is brown field, 12 miles from co-incinerator, but Malpass Rugby is on a landfill, earmarked for industrial use, and is conveniently next door.

CHRISTMAS GIFT FOR WINNERS!
The public have many happy months ahead, a significant period, in which to comment - as the decision will be announced by WCC at Christmas, as a GIFT for the winning community!

There will be two planning applications, two Environmental Impact Assessments, publications, exhibitions, information on web, as many means as possible to communicate with you what is going to happen, and allow you to give your views. We have to build this and to burn waste to save the nitrogen dioxide emissions, which of course are already "way below our emission limits" (err?) but we can save them more. And Carbon Dioxide - we can save that too - by calling these wastes "carbon neutral"! It is much better for us to burn this waste than to continue burning South African coal. It is sustainable and saves this waste from going to landfill, and emitting methane a green house gas 20 times more damaging than carbon dioxide.

WARWICKSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL to be helped with landfill target, to save them and the public from being fined. And we provide 750 jobs locally. "CLIMAFUEL" is on trial now at Rugby as a 30% replacement. (FUNNY SUMS: actually it is on 100% replacement as the 16 tonnes coal needed in the CALCINER is being replaced by 6 tonnes tyres, and the balance of approximately 10 tonnes is being replaced by 15 tonnes climafuel each hour) After the "climafuel trial" there is to be a lengthy consultation in which we will provide data to PROVE there is no NET DETRIMENT!


DEAD BODIES NO PROBLEM:
GORDON COLLETT CHAIRING did not want to "get bogged down" or to allow too many questions. One questioner was worried about living in the prevailing down wind area: This process does not smell like a landfill, and Southam has a chimney ready for use, but we can vent the emissions through the roof at Rugby, as about 25% of the waste will be "moisture" that has to be "dried off and vented". No we will most definitely not have a chimney at Rugby - OK - oh err maybe we will have a "small one". The plant is at negative air pressure and no emissions and odour will escape. EVERYTHING IS KEPT IN! It is all in a sealed building.
Only 25% of waste will be moisture drawn off, and vented. The two plants may vary, and use a different technology.

One questioner said waste was to come from all over the country, and asked what guarantee there was the bins would not contain toxic materials? How would Cemex deal with "dead bodies", and other things like "dog muck" that get into "wheely bins". Apparently household waste is an "homogeneous beast" and "odd extraneous" materials like that, and metals, and "large items", would be sorted out by the MBT process, and turned into the "climafuel".


1,000 TONNES OF WASTE IN TEN LORRIES!
Another question revealed that Southam was the preferred option, and that the 70 clay lorries (each way each day) would only increase "to 80 or 90", or should that read "two 80 or 90? Another odd sum - how do you get 1,000 tonnes a day of bulky waste into 10, OR EVEN 20, lorries? Half the MUNICIPAL WASTE will be suitable to burn , 25-30% will be recycled and "a little 5%" will be landfilled.

INDUSTRIAL COMMERCIAL WASTE in the application/s got no mention at all!
This is all about your black bag rubbish, and what Cemex can do for you!

OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS NOW FOR COUNCILLORS ASRUGBY COUNCIL OFFERS PUBLIC INQUIRY TENTATIVE SUPPORT:
In response to public concerns and a growing demand for a Public Inquiry Craig Humphries, leader of Rugby Borough Council said:

"This application in the terms described in the question would be a matter determined by Warwickshire County Council. So far as I am aware no application has been made to date. If, and when it is, the Council will wish to consider its response both as a local planning authority and as a Council. At this stage I will not be seeking to commit the Council to seeking a Public Inquiry."

LILIAN OF ARC

CALLS FOR URGENT PUBLIC INQUIRY!
OVER WASTE PLANT AT SOUTHAM OR AT RUGBY!

A RUGBY TIMES EXCLUSIVE
revealed that Lilian has challenged conventional candidates for the new parliamentary seat of Rugby, as Tory Jeremy Wright moves over to Southam.
They likened Lilian to Joan of Arc, riding to the rescue of Rugby, tirelessly working for Rugby residents, and well-known nationally as a determined environmental campaigner, challenging the government to properly implement the European Directives, and Aarhus Convention, and to allow British citizens their rightful Access to Justice, and right to redress of "environmental crimes", without becoming bankrupt.
Lilian, always serving Rugby, seeks no personal gain, being rewarded only by the grateful thanks of those suffering the environmental
detriment, loss of amenity, poor air quality, and health effects, delivered by the "dubious actions" of the local authorities, the Environment Agency and
the industrial polluters. The usual Warwickshire County Council practise of failing to consult the public, and of "nodding through" retrospective planning permissions to the benefit of industry, and at great cost to the public, must end - NOW!

RUGBY BOROUGH COUNCIL TO SUPPORT PUBLIC INQUIRY?
QUESTION FOR CABINET 2ND JUNE 2008:

Cemex are submitting a planning application for a huge waste processing plant for 1,000 tonnes a day of household, commercial and industrial waste, to be "imported" from all over the country to an urban area on Parkfield Road. From this total 360 tonnes of Refuse Derived Fuel will be burnt each day in the Cemex co-incinerator, leaving a residue of 640 tonnes to go where, for recycling and landfill?
Rugby residents are very concerned about the cumulative impact of the Cemex operations, which have never had any Environmental Impact Assessment , and we are calling for a full open debate about the comparative merits of using the much larger rural site at Southam, or the smaller urban site at Rugby which is in an area already polluted, with high levels of particulate, daily exceedances of the PM10 objective, and also in the nitrogen dioxide AQMA, where pollution is set to rise significantly due to the routing of the new Western Relief Road along Parkfield Road.
As Parliamentary Candidate and an behalf of Rugby in Plume I am calling for a full open debate, and an urgent PUBLIC INQUIRY. Will this Cabinet, and Rugby Council, support the people of Rugby and call for a Public Inquiry - as "Rugby has had enough!"
Lilian Pallikaropoulos

Cemex Starts Rugby-Southam War

CAST YOUR VOTE NOW: ON A LOCAL SOLUTION TO A LOCAL PROBLEM?

RUGBY OR SOUTHAM WASTE PLANT?
To be discussed IN SECRET on Friday 24th May at Rugby Town Hall.
CEMEX ask WARWICKSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL to approve their planning application for a 1,000 tonne a day WASTE HANDLING/PROCESSING PLANT: 240,000 tonnes year MUNICIPAL SOLID WASTE, COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL WASTE MATERIALS, and 125,000 tpa of imported SRF type material or "Climafuel" from other MBT facilities.

DEVELOPMENT - SIX FEATURES:
Reception and Process Building; Materials recycling facility; Blending House; Buffer storage area;
Bio-filter Area to house Environmental control systems such as water and air; plus who knows how many juggernauts!


PROCESSING (MBT Mechanical Biological Treatment and MHT Mechanical Heat Treatment) and BLENDING 125,000 tonnes a year imported ready-made "climafuel" for "blending" in with some of the 240,000 tonnes domestic, commercial and industrial wastes, in order to provide 130,000 tonnes of "climafuel" for burning in the calciner at the Cemex co-incinerator : where it is being used as a 100% replacement, at 15 tonnes per hour (360 tpd) along with 6 tonnes of tyres (144tpd), to replace 16 tonnes of coal (504 tonnes waste daily to substitute for 384 tonnes coal). Grimsby Port Authority' has a three year contract to handle the importation of Dutch/European "climafuel" for South Ferriby and Barrington plants.
WHY IMPORT WASTE, and where does the rest go?

SSSSHHH! TOP SECRET TEA PARTY!

CEMEX TAKE OVER SCRUFFY-TOWN HALL!

"RUGBY TO BECOME EVEN MORE A CEMEX WASTE DUMP!"
SAY COUNCILLORS, AS COUNCIL TAXES USED, YET AGAIN, TO SUBSIDISE RUGBY CEMENT.
23 MAY - PRIVATE PRESENTATION!
NO PUBLIC! NO PRESS!
NO WITNESSES!

MARK THE BALLOT ON CODE OF CONDUCT:
THE TEN GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RUGBY COUNCILLORS, OR NOT?
1. Selflessness - serve only public interest; never confer advantage or disadvantage.
2. Honesty and Integrity - avoid appearance of improper behaviour.
3. Objectivity - decisions on merit.
4. Accountability - to the public.
5. Openness - open and justify actions.
6. Personal Judgement - take account of public's view.
7. Respect for others - equality and not discrimination.
8. Duty to uphold the law - act in accordance with public trust.
9. Stewardship - use resources prudently.
10 Leadership - secure or preserve public confidence.
11 NONE OF THE ABOVE?



JOIN THE "KEEP CEMEX HAPPY CLUB!"
Despite the highly contentious and controversial nature of this latest Cemex proposition, our pleas to all 48 Councillors for openness, honesty
integrity, and transparency fall on deaf ears as they continue to discriminate against the public, serving only Cemex, as they squander our Council
Taxes on secret meetings - just as Warwickshire County Council does - in an apparent aim to "keep Cemex happy!"


ERIN BROCKOVICH NEEDED IN RUGBY!
With the continued public involvement, and wide-spread support, united we continue to "fight for the future of Rugby!" We do our best against the great odds put up by those who, using public money, are self-serving, ignorant of the scientific facts; those in authority, who have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo by intimidation, deception, and control. Matt Wright's letter in the Rugby Times "History will have the last word over Lilian" is very heartening, praising as it does our "passion to fight wrong doing", our "refusal to take the line of least resistance and to roll over and die", and our unshakeable "belief in people power and justice for ordinary folk!" The fight against the wrong-doers goes on! In another letter Martin Pope asks Cemex for a re-spray, and questions the damage to his lungs, as he comments on the nature of the cement dust on his classic car - which he likens to "grinding paste" when washed off with a sponge and water.

ERIN BROCKOVICH, mentioned by Matt in his letter, is famous for the Julia Roberts film on hexavalent chromium poisoning in a water supply. ERIN has been called to HELP RIVERSIDE cement plant locals, and is currently investigating the high rate of cancer, and high blood levels of hexavalent chromium, evident in the residents who live down wind of the TXI Riverside Cement Plant. These carcinogenic emissions are among the many other poisonous pollutants found in cement plant emissions, and in the so-called "white dust" that descends on residents near cement plants everywhere. (see Los Angeles Times - Rubidoux). There are no monitors in Rugby for any of the toxic pollutants and metals that are being emitted 24/7, nor for cancer-causing vaporised mercury, arsenic, lead, dioxins etc.


COUNCILLORS TO NOD THROUGH MORE POLLUTION AND DIRT?
In the meantime what do the 48 Rugby Councillors do about the environment, dust, and emissions that pour out onto Rugby residents? They care not a jot as they squander yet more of our Council Taxes, subsidising Cemex, inviting them to "take tea", and permitting them to take over the Town Hall (23 May), and giving them unfettered access in order to lobby the Councillors, in secret, with "private pre-application discussions and presentations".


RUGBY SUCKERZ!
Why does Cemex not hire a room accessible to the public? Hardly likely while Rugby residents pay up for them to have secret Council meetings. How far this "SECRET SHOW" will influence the Councillors remains to be seen, but with such self-serving wimps at the helm it seems inevitable that the proposed 1,000 tonne a day waste processing plant on the Malpass landfill site on Parkfield Road, New Bilton will be nodded through, nicely situated alongside the cement plant so all the emissions can accumulate and blow
over the town in the prevalent "favourable" westerly winds. ANOTHER NAIL IN THE COFFIN OF SCRUFFY TOWN!

Suck it up Rugby!

RUGBY TOWN TOPS LEAGUE TABLE FOR DIRTIEST STREETS IN WEST MIDLANDS!

WE SEE IT HERE, WE SEE IT THERE, DIRT AND DUST ON EVERYWHERE!

The Rugby Advertiser 8 May 8th, quoting UNION GMB survey labelled Rugby, "SCRUFFY TOWN", as Rugby was "pipped at the post", and deprived of actually being branded the dirtiest town out of the 34 entrants, being beaten only by the more filthy streets of Birmingham, Coventry, Bedworth and Nuneaton. 19% of the Rugby streets fell below the acceptable level of cleanliness."There are still too many councils not putting enough effort and resources into keeping the streets clean, and that has got to change!"

SAMPLE OF LETTERS IN PRESS:
MASKS. MOON DUST, FAIRIES, POLLEN?

LEAVE LILIAN ALONE: I write for everyone in Rugby and beyond who are concerned for their health, safety, and quality of life. Here in Rugby we have a dedicated lady, Lilian P, showing concerns over the Cemex factory. She does not "ride the gravy train" and I do not think (Rugby Cement gifts of) "flowers" or "roof tiles" will silence her. Please invite a Sioux Indian to visit Rugby to read the smoke signals coming from the chimney and tell people the truth? Otherwise we have no chance! (Lawford resident)

THE ANSWER IS BLOWING IN THE WIND:
THIS TIME I suppose we have to blame the pesky Sahara desert for the measurable thickness of dust deposited on our cars? Perhaps Cemex's bunkers, hoppers and chimneys act as a natural barrier, a bit like the Pennine Chain, and Saharan sand is precipitated on one side only, like rain in Manchester? Still I cannot sit here musing all day, I have to collect yet another Beclazone inhaler for my wife, who seems to be getting through rather a lot lately. Must be that pesky Saharan dust! (Shakespeare Gardens)

COVERED IN DUST - YET AGAIN I awake to find my home and car covered in filth. I am an arthritic pensioner meaning all cleaning jobs are difficult. Consequently I have this week paid £15 to have my windows cleaned and £6.50 for my car - for what? Perhaps Cemex are now employing fairies to sprinkle moon dust over us all for good luck? That could well be the next ridiculous excuse they expect us stupid rate-payers to accept. Lilian P wisely advises us to move away, or to wear masks. I cannot afford to move else I would be off like a shot. And as for wearing masks it should be Cemex management wearing those so we don't recognise them in public. There again why bother? They don't hang about of live in the firing line do they? (Cherwell Way)

LAST WEEK Cemex brazenly denied they were responsible for dust that was clearly seen leaving their factory, was reported by the public, and which landed on cars and property. They always say "complaints investigated - case not proven" - so eye-witness accounts mean nothing. During the UK-wide dust episode the Environment Agency were inundated by calls, as reported in the Rugby Advertiser. "Annoyed residents from all areas of Rugby say they believe it came from Rugby Cement because it USUALLY does!"


CEMEX WASTE PLANT FILTH!!
1,000 TONNES A DAY: planned for Rugby Malpass Site, by Cemex, who will begin the process by the usual "secret" meetings with Rugby Councillors (May 28?) in order to "soften them up", in the usual way, by pre-consultation consultation, and in the pre-application application, before they finally submit the application giving the public just three weeks to respond.

CAN RUGBY TAKE ANY MORE DUST AND POLLUTION IN THE AIR, ANY MORE DIRT AND FILTH ON OUR STREETS?

IS IT MERE CO-INCIDENCE THAT THIS TOWN HAS GONE STEADILY DOWN HILL SINCE THE NEW RUGBY WORKS WAS OPENED IN FEBRUARY 2000?

MYSTERY DUST EXPLAINED?

AS MERELY SPRING CLEANING?

UK-WIDE COMPLAINTS ROLL IN - POSSIBILITIES REPORTED IN THE PRESS:
Cemex co-incinerator trials of tyres and RDF in Rugby?
Grangemouth oil refinery restart?
Drakelow power station - oops - its closed down?
Farmers burning stubble - in May?
Dunbar Lafarge Cement - sulphur and plume grounding reported?
SEPA: "particles are mix of sand, road dust and plants."
MET OFFICE: Saharan sand.
MET OFFICE: Spain.
Pollen from Europe?
Smoke from Europe - Russian fires?
Chemical weapons testing?
Volcano in Chile?
Cyclone in Burma?
Olympic flame?
Sponsored chimney sweep?
Housewives spring cleaning?


WASTE FUELS : "DREAD" TERMS?
The HEALTH PROTECTION AGENCY reportedly, at the the 11th Institute of Environment and Health meeting at Cranfield, outlined the "problems" of communicating to the public that the burning of waste in cement kilns SHOULD lead to no increased health effects. So there we have it, straight from the horses mouth - there are health effects but these should not increase - over what level? And how is this assessed?

This issue had consumed so much of their time and energy, but "there is public concern which we ignore at our peril. In many ways what we've seen is an object lesson in how not to do it, and more recently how to do it - through COMEAP. The cement industry has not covered itself in glory in the past and the Profuel/Cemfuel/Climafuel are on their way to becoming "dread" terms."

COMEAP: TIGHT CONTROLS NEEDED!
The HPA when first set up was welcomed by residents and protesters as a new independent body to review scientific evidence, but this view has now begun to erode, and the HPA is seen as an "ally of industry!" COMEAP has been approached five times on the issue of waste in cement kilns. Given the numerous combinations of different types of waste fuels and processes COMEAP has found it hard to be able to give the "all-clear" for all fuels and all combinations based on the data provided. They are shortly expected to publish a report giving the okay for waste fuels, but crucially it will say that MANAGEMENT CONTROLS WILL NEED TO BE TIGHT.

PUBLIC CONCERN TO END? WRONG!
The HPA are said to be "waiting with baited breath for the report which hopefully will go some way towards ending public concern."

PUBLIC CONCERN WILL NOT END!
The HPA said there were many "claimed" advantages for burning Refuse derive Fuel, waste tyres meat and bone meal. "Cement kilns require a huge amount of energy and high temperatures and long residence times means that many potentially toxic products are either destroyed or absorbed in the cement and clinker."

But all this ignores the very real threat posed by the unmonitored Low Level Point Sources which emit constantly as the clinker is ground into cement "dust" which carries on each bag hazard warnings! These emissions also must contain "the toxic products" that are supposedly safely absorbed into the cement dust? The addition of unquantified/unspecified industrial wastes at all stages of the process as substitutes for, or in addition to, many of the raw materials has never been assessed by anyone. At RUGBY there was no consultation, and no planning permission for storage, no chemical analysis, and no EU waste codes; - as COMEAP concentrate their attention on the "alternative fuels" as described above. These over 100% coal replacements (16 tph coal replaced by 6 tph tyres and 15 tph RDF) in any case do not even go into the kiln, but are burnt in the calciner at lower temperatures , with short residence time, and the gases go in a contraflow to heat up the raw materials, before being emitted via the main stack - or escaping sometimes as fugitive emissions.

COAL TO BE USED ON START-UP:
The IPPC permits specifically state that "no waste is to be burnt on start-up, or shut down, and when the kiln is running at less than 200 tonnes an hour raw meal feed." No satisfactory explanation has ever been given for this, so one can only conclude there is "something" much worse about the emissions from the wastes than the coal? Otherwise why would they start to pay £60 a tonnes for coal when they could be £90 a tonne better off by being paid £30 a tonne to burn waste instead. We also "await the COMEAP report with baited breath" and it remains to be seen if COMEAP had better go back to the drawing board?

RUGBY.. DIRTIEST GRUBBIEST TOWN

TOWN COATED IN MYSTERY DUST - YET AGAIN!
THAT'S OFFICIAL!

ENVIRONMENT AGENCY IN DENIAL - YET AGAIN!

* "Our 2006 air quality survey (see RBC web) does not support Lilian's suggestion that she is merely a spokesperson for an actively-concerned public : it indicates that most people are broadly satisfied with their local environment and air quality."

* "Local residents have failed to show any continuing interest in operations at the Rugby plant."

* The Agency simply does not believe people in Rugby are bothered at all about the cement works, nor about being covered in dust and pollution, and claims "the extent of the residents' concerns is questionable".

* "There is no evidence of widespread public support or concern in Rugby."

* The Agency criticised the Rugby public's lack of response to the continuous consultations on yet ever more Cemex applications, describing Rugby residents as having no "active interest"!



RESIDENTS UP IN ARMS - YET AGAIN! as yet another bank Holiday is spent washing their cars and windows after an over night coating with dust. The "dust", which was so thick that residents could not even see out of their car windows, has coated cars, conservatories, caravans, window ledges and any other flat surfaces, and has been reported across the whole of the town after a still, airless night.


ENVIRONMENT AGENCY BESIEGED - YET AGAIN!
Complaints have deluged the Environment Agency switchboard, with calls right across the town from Long Lawford, New Bilton, Bilton , Hillmorton - postal codes CV22, CV21, and CV23.


LORDS JUDGEMENT RIGHT - YET AGAIN! * "After all the inhabitants of Rugby had been living with A cement works for a long time..."
* "In other words there was already so much dust in the air of Rugby..." that perhaps adding a few more hundred tonnes a year makes no difference?
* "The local people were sceptical and reluctant to be experimented upon."


DR EVANS OF RUGBY CEMENT EXPLAINS - YET AGAIN!
that Rugby Cement did not consider it necessary to tell the public AT ANY STAGE, - not during the "secret" WCC planning application/s, nor during construction, nor during the secret IPC, nor during the grossly misleading IPPC application that they cunningly called "tyre burning application" - about the levels of dust to which they would be constantly exposed from the Low Level Point Sources, and about the frequent exposure to "fugitive dust".

House of Lords 19/20:

QUOTE: "The application said nothing however about the effect of adding the contribution of emissions of PM10 from LLPS to the ambient air quality.
The consultants had not been asked to include these emissions in their computer model. Dr Evans explained in his second witness statement: 'The rationale for this was that releases from the main stack were considered to be of more significance than those from other point sources such as the cement mills, where there would be lower discharge volumes and concentrations. We considered the general risk assessment approach to be satisfactory and in line with general guidance.' One reason for excluding the LLPS from the company's modelling exercise MAY have been the GREAT DIFFICULTY of doing so with ANY PRETENCE AT ACCURACY.

Whereas emissions from the main stack are continuous (???!) and from a single fixed point above all surrounding buildings, the emissions from the LLPS are from a number of different places at different heights for irregular periods of time and MAYBE (???!) affected by the layout of the buildings. An attempt at modelling MAY therefore not have been able to produce very helpful information."

LILIAN'S COMMENT :"A LIKELY STORY" - YET AGAIN!
Is this a joke? So they built a 2,000,000 tonne a year capacity cement works, with NO ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT!
Then they admit that neither the EA nor Rugby Cement, and much less so the hapless Warwickshire County Council planners, had ever considered WHAT EMISSIONS were to come out of it from the various sources, and WHERE the emissions were to fall and what environmental, air quality and health impact this would have on the long-suffering Rugby residents?

Even though the plant had, by the time of the IPPC application, been running for 18 months still there was NO REAL LIVE DATA available from the 19 LLPS as they have NO MONITORS at all! Rugby Cement "attempted" to do some dispersion modelling of what they said was "from the the installation", but it was in fact of the "main stack only", in order to convince the "sceptical public who were reluctant to be experimented upon" that there was "no problem".
No information was in the public domain, and with repeated complaints by the dust-coated public the Agency then decided to "dispersion model" the emissions from the LLPS - in two secret AQMAU reports - which shocked both them and Rugby Cement so much that they decided to hide them. "Rugby Cement expressed great concern about this information getting into the public domain!" Even at the end of 2002 the Agency could not get information
out of Rugby Cement as to what was being emitted from where, because no-one had EVER considered it as important, and Rugby Cement struggled to find any "ACTUAL DATA" to give to the Agency. The Agency's top scientists in the AQMAU team said this application fell far short of what would be considered adequate, and there were so many gaps in the data - despite the plant having run for THREE YEARS!!

However the Health Protection Agency, under its former name of the Chemical Hazards Research Unit at Birmingham University had already pointed out in response to the IPPC application, in 2001, (the application that ONLY they ever saw!!) that the mills and other low level sources were emitting at far too high a rate and were likely to be very detrimental to the air quality in Rugby. No level of particulate is safe!