CEMEX : SALE OF THE CENTURY?

CEMEX'S AGGRESSIVE EXPANSION COMES TO A STICKY END as Cemex try to reduce costs by £288 million by selling off assets and re-financing  the £2 billion loan it used last year to buy Australia's RINKER group. So far sales of cement, concrete and aggregate plants are anticipated in Australia, Austria and Hungary and possibly in the USA, according to the press reports, which say that product sales are down by 20-30%, or so. The Credit Crunch has hit home hard, and the loan has been restructured from 2009 to 2010 with a higher interest rate.


JOB LOSSES
worldwide equate to about 10% of the work force - about 6,000 jobs - as concrete sales flop and Cemex sells assets. In the UK Cemex has been working on efficiency; prioritising capital expenditure, and cutting back on investment in new projects  and in some cases putting them on hold;  reducing the cement and aggregate fleet to improve productivity, reducing shifts, overtime spend and head count across the business by at least 10%. Underutilised assets are to be closed and mothballed. Won't come a moment too soon for Rugby residents, who eagerly plan the street party to celebrate the permanent mothball of the monstrous plant.


WASTE PLANT PLAN: IN JEOPARDY AS CO-INCINERATOR CANNOT BE USED FOR INCINERATION ONLY -  will not meet the more restrictive Waste Incinerator Directive limits, without the cement-related exemptions it currently "enjoys", which permit much higher emissions than incinerators.

PROXIMITY PRINCIPLE?
SOUTHAM /RUGBY WAR CONTINUES:

GOING IN:
North Warwicks  42,000 tpa =  151 tpd  = 14 HGV.
Nuneaton            75,000 tpa =  270 tpd =   24 HGV
Stratford             30,000 tpa  = 108 tpd = 10 HGV
Stratford             30,000 tpa  = 108 tpd = 22 REFUSE TRUCKS.
Warwick             66,000 tpa =   257 tpd   = 20 HGV
Rugby                57,000 tpa =   205 tpd  =  42 REFUSE trucks
SUB-TOTAL    300,000 tpa = 1,099 tpd = 132 HGVs per day.
RDF                124,000 tpa = 354 tpd = 34 HGVs
TOTAL             424,000 tpa = 1,453 = 166 HGVs?


GOING OUT
250,000 tpa - 713 tpd = 68 HGVs to the Cemex co-incinerator.
70,000 tpa - 210 tpd to landfill
35,000 tpa - 107 tpd to recycle
335,000 tpa - 1,030 tpd


TOTAL POLLUTION/GAS/AIR/WATER/ETC DRIED OFF AND VENTED OVER RUGBY 400  tonnes each day!! Why bring in about 1,500  tonnes waste daily  then DRY one third of it off over our heads with all these POLLUTANTS in it - nearly 20 tonnes an hour over us from a 45 metre stack with a semi-permanent plume?  And that is without counting the Cemex co-incinerator emissions from the 30 tonnes an hour of refuse burning - for which they have no IPPC Permit as yet!

SENSITIVE LORRY MILE ASSESSMENT:
In a detailed planning application for a half a million tonne a year waste plant one would expect the required  assessment of the SENSITIVE LORRY MILES which involve the costing to the community, infrastructure, health service etc of the different lorry routes to be used. Obviously the motorway miles are priced most cheaply  as they do the least damage to the environment, where as those miles in small country lanes are more costly  to the public, and those in towns, especially  in air quality management areas, are even more costly adding as they do to the damage
to the infrastructure, the environment, pollution, air quality problems and associated health damage.



LAING RAIL REPORT April 2004 as submitted is five years out of date, and only considered the 140 clay lorries each day, and is not relevant to this new proposal. The railway needs to be re-assessed as an alternative form of transport and  the SOUTHAM site shows there would be much less environmental, air quality and health damage if that site were to be used, AND even more if  the rail link re-opened. It would take off the road some 140 clay lorries each day, and the RDF 160, so say 300 HGVs a day on a 30 mile round trip. That would save about 4,500 lorry miles each day on small B roads and in the town of Rugby.
How much pollution is that - tail pipe, brakes and tyres, and the SAVING of 4,5000 miles a day of fossil fuels?  No attempt has been made to seriously address the total lorries and the pollution that could be avoided.

CEMEX HITS THE BUFFERS

AS RESIDENTS START TO FIGHT BACK!LONG LAWFORD PARISH COUNCIL decided last night that the planning application for the half million tonne waste plant was a step too far. They threw it out unanimously on many varied grounds, including : the air quality deterioration; increased health risk; fire risk; transport  and pollution impact of the hundreds more Heavy Goods Vehicles; danger to public health of the bacteria emissions from the planned  MBT in an urban area; unsuitability of location; already high levels of
industrial emissions;  cumulative total of environmental and pollution impacts of Cemex operations; Health Impact Assessment required!.

SOUTHAM IS THE ONLY POSSIBILITY! THE DISUSED RAILWAY MUST BE RE-OPENED - IT WAS SAFE-GUARDED FOR RUGBY CEMENT'S USE AT A COST OF MILLIONS TO THE PUBLIC! THIS WOULD REMOVE 400,000 + DAILY LORRY MILES BETWEEN SOUTHAM/RUGBY!

CEMEX IN BIG TROUBLE -DAVENPORT USA ITS NOT ONLY THE WASTE FUEL TRIALS, BUT ALTERNATIVE RAW MATERIALS

ALSO cause  trouble for Cemex , with the MONTEREY BAY air quality department, after the substitution of  some raw materials by  industrial waste . This  appears to have lead to a TENFOLD  increase in CHROMIUM SIX being formed, and found in the dust down wind of the plant, apparently  from the MILL SCALE and STEEL SLAG. Erin Brockovich is rushing to help,  as public  meetings are called,  and health checks carried out for the increased cancer risk associated with these emissions.

ALTERNATIVE WASTE RAW MATERIALS - WITHOUT  EU WASTE CODES!
Where else are they trialling the use of these wastes?  No prizes for guessing!
Is this dust from the main stack, low level point source stacks, and vents or fugitives?
How does Rugby Borough Council test  for this cancer-causing toxic dust?
It doesn't even know about it - RBC hiding its head, ostrich like, in piles of cement kiln dust!

SLOWLY SLOWLY CEMEX & RUGBY OBSERVER

CEMENT FUEL PLAN SUBMITTED - Rugby Observer 2 October 2008
 
PRESS COMPLAINTS TO DECIDE - IS IT FACT, OR FICTION?

EDITORIAL, OR CEMEX ADVERTISMENT?
 
QUOTE:

"CEMEX has submitted a second planning application to build a plant which would turn much of Warwickshire's unrecyclable rubbish into a fuel for its cement plant.  The application for land known as MALPASS FARM next to the plant on Lawford Road was submitted this week and is a carbon copy of the one made for the company's quarry in SOUTHAM in August.
 
 
JUST ONE will be built, but CEMEX believes by seeking permission for both is the best way of seeing which one the public would prefer.  Ther Climafuel plant will cost £35 million and will employ 25 people at which ever site it is built at. It wil be up and running by 2010 if approved. It would see as much as 75 per cenet of unrecyclable household waste produced by the county's residents saved from landfill by being dried out, packed into blocks and then used to power the cement plant. The use of climafuel would reduce levels of CO2 equivalent to that produced by 72,000 cars in a year a company spokesman said. The plans will be on show to the Public outside CEMEX HOUSE in October 23 and 24 from 2pm to 6pm, and on October 25 from 10am to 2pm.
 
 
COMMENTS can be emailed to ian.southcott@cemex.com or sent by post to Ian Southcott, Community Affairs Manager, CEMEX UK, Evreux Way, Rugby Warwickshire CV21 2DT."

I would like to know whether this report, by an unidentified person, was in fact a paid advert by Cemex or a  VERY misleading  and MISINFORMING  article published by the  RUGBY OBSERVER  ?    But in either case surely no excuse can be made for misleading the public in this way?   If it was an advertisement then surely it should have said so?
 
WARWICKSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL is asking for the comments during the  PUBLIC CONSULTATION  into the Cemex Malpass Parkfield Road planning application which ends on 21st October, but  in this apparent  Cemex advert it asks people to view the plans outside the Cemex House on October 23-24 from 2.00 to 6.00 pm and on 25th October from 10.00 am to 2.00 pm, and then asks them to send comments direct to Cemex as they claim they have put in the two applications at Southam and Rugby as "the best way of seeing which one the public would prefer."
 
The Report/Advert  is factually inaccurate, and misleading,   and ends by asking the public to email or post comments to Ian Southcott of Cemex, which is in itself misleading as comments must go to the County Council. This is exactly how Rugby Cement  operated as well, with a "hot line" to the plant so that the complaints can be dealt with by the management , discretely ,   by whatever means they "feel is  appropriate and beneficial to them",   with no-one knowing, and no public record  -   as they try to divide up the community.  
 
 
PUBLIC  ASKED TO COMMENT ON WHAT?
Rugby in Plume are offering a prize for the person who spots the most "deliberate mistakes" in  the article/advert, riddled with misinformation, which  makes no reference to the WCC web and public library where people can see the "actual"  application and Environmental Statement, or  pay £75 to Cemex for a copy, nor that the consultation closes on 21 October. What are the public supposed to coment on - the misleading information given in the Observer?  Are Cemex and the Rugby Observer making monkeys of Rugby residents - yet again?
 
 
CEMEX SHOULD WITHDRAW THIS AUDACIOUS UNSUSTAINABLE UNSUPPORTABLE RUGBY APPLICATION WITH IMMEDIATE EFFECT!!

Shall we make a video like this in Rugby!?

PLEASE PLEASE help us - New Bilton and Newbold will be poisoned...

250,000 T. REFUSE DERIVED FUEL TO BE TUMBLE DRIED USING COAL AND RDF FURNACES BEFORE CO-INCINERATION AT CEMEX RUGBY - DOUBLING THE RATE TO 30 TPH!

WHICH IS WORSE?
To construct this monstrous plant at Southam's rural site - or in urban Rugby - where the cumulative total of pollution from the Cemex co-incinerator plus this 500,000 tpa Refuse Processing plant may well turn out to be "overwhelming" for the local residents during the "short term pollution incidents", and to have long term health effects. The plant is to have a 91 metre stack if built at Southam, in order to "safely" disperse the pollution over a wider area - but at Rugby in order to disperse it "less safely" and closer, over more local residents, they are only to have a 45 metre stack. Of course it is not actually about the BPEO (Best Practicable Environmental Option) that they decide to vent more onto Rugby, it is because it is cheaper, as they already have a 91 metre stack at Southam. CHEAP SKATES!

WHERE THERE'S MUCK THERE'S MONEY!
Who ever first coined the phrase certainly knew what he was on about. And of course we will pay WCC to collect the waste from us, and then we will pay Cemex to process it, and then pay Cemex to burn it, and to pump it back out over our heads, dumping our own waste back on us. That is better than landfill - pumping it into the air I suppose? Is this RECYCLING, or the BPEO?


WARWICKSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL - STINGY!
say 21 days is all they are prepared to give local residents and all they are legally required to "give" us in which to comment, and then if we are not happy with the decision, which is to be made on 15 December as a nice CHRISTMAS GIFT to the lucky winers, we can take them to JUDICIAL REVIEW, and waste another EIGHT years of our lives, and ALL OUR OWN MONEY, battling them in the court trying to get JUSTICE for RUGBY RESIDENTS. Maybe WCC should manufacture some WCC sticks of rock for suckers?

Not only are they holding this gun to our heads, but also this planning permission is dependent on a doubling of the waste burning at Rugby, so it seems we are to get it all ways. And of course there was NO PRE-APPLICATION CONSULTATION as is supposed to happen, only a "scoping" which did NOT tell the truth! And a few secret village meetings held in backrooms with a very small handful of specially selected local peasants invited. Rugby residents were not even informed and there was NO MENTION of DOUBLING the waste burning in the Cemex Co-incinerator, much less of tumble drying 250,000 REFUSE over our heads. They even said there was no need to have a chimney as it was to be ever-so environmentally friendly - and so very CLEAN - the "clean pollutants" could all be vented out at roof-top level.

SLOWLY SLOWLY THE TRUTH IS COMING OUT
Rugby has the co-incinerator and now we have to be polluted more to fuel the beast! Read the Health Protection Agency web site for more details about the dangers of RDF and how the COMEAP committee can guarantee nothing, but they are HOPEFUL that the pollution from waste burning will be "no worse" than the pollution from coal - as long as all is going "well". The Environment Agency POINT BLANK REFUSE (and have for FIVE years) to answer why they have to stop burning wastes and to start burning coal when things go wrong! And when it doesn't go well - and emission limits are not met and fugitives are oozing out - well that is a different story, and it doesn't take the HPA's "emminent body of so-called experts" to inform us that it will NOT be BENEFICIAL TO OUR HEALTH!