FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEM NOW OVERCOME"Community engagement to START - with information sharing!"
Incredible!
THE RUGBY CEMENT COMMUNITY FORUM
MONDAY 8 DEC 6.00PM ST OSWALDS CHURCH, Lawford Road, Rugby, invites the public to attend. The RCCF has been asking for information for many years, but the Agency has even to answer Freedom of Information and EIR requests. Are they about to do a U-turn, and to start to be be open , honest, transparent, and to engage in meaningful dialogue, with access to information?
RCCF LETTER 8th October :
"expresses concern about lack of information forthcoming from the Environment Agency, and asks formally for the outcomes of the Agency's investigations into the numerous pollution incidents to be made public, and brought to the Forum. It is becoming increasingly difficult to scrutinise the production at this plant impartially if members do not receive full evidence. It is vital if we are to be seen to be fulfilling the needs of the community by this scrutiny that we receive information regularly and as soon as it is available."
AGENCY REPLY:
CEMEX, RBC and the AGENCY have been funding the Environment Council as facilitator in trying to "start community engagement" in Rugby (yes in that same Rugby where the Agency lawyers told the House of Lords that NO ONE but NO ONE is interested or concerned about the cement plant and its operations) and to try to "move forward together". Limited progress has been made so far, after one year of struggle and endeavour, (on top of the previous seven years!!) but now the Agency has a "new bright idea" and has just informed the Forum as follows:
"You can see those records of pollution incidents on our Public Register at Rugby Borough Council, or ask the company to show them to you at your meetings. I think this ties in to our work on public engagement and I'm proposing to Cemex and RBC that we START by trying to establish protocols for the sharing of information. This seems to have been a fundamental problem in our relationship to date, and I hope that we can agree what, how and when information can be provided to the public, AND what they will use this information for. The Environment Council should be writing to stakeholders shortly to set this us."
"From the Workshop outcomes on 17th September we believe the focus at the work group should be on the exchange of information with the public. This was a common thread running through the feedback in the workshop and it is a tangible area of work that could be developed and would help further improve any future development of public engagement."
MUSHROOM SYNDROME?
The Agency finally admit what is wrong in Rugby, and the mushrooms,
aka residents, are now going to get access to information? Can it be true that the authorities finally admit that there has been no honest, transparent, open, meaningful community engagement, and no proper consultation and information sharing? So its back to the drawing board - with us all being fully informed - after ONLY eight years of asking! But SADLY it is just too late to "do anything" about the unlawfully built and operated cement co-incinerator. But they will now at least tell us about it. Nice one!
RE CHROMIUM VI EMISSIONS:
CEMEX DAVENPORT SHUT DOWN
AGENCY SAYS: We allow a work place exposure of 50 micrograms/m3 per eight hour day. We have no information on chromium VI emissions from the Cemex plant, and it has no specific limit at the plant in any case. Total heavy metals including chromium (and antimony, arsenic, lead, cobalt, copper, manganese, nickel and vanadium) are limited to 0.5mg/m3 and is required to be "sampled" only four times a year. The UK's Environment Action Level is 0.1 micrograms per metre cubed as an annual average and we think it unlikely to get to that level as the Dispersion Model for metals shows a ground level concentration of 0.000119 micrograms/m3.
CEMENT MILL EMISSIONS TREBLE CHROMIUM VI:
"Cement mill emissions are "controlled" by a limit on particulate matter of 30 mg/m3." This actually means to say the EA "put a limit on", but there is no way it is controlled at all, and often exceeds. In any case it is only sampled TWICE a year. BUT using a worst case
emission of CHROMIUM from the cement mills in the "clinker dust" the chromium in the ambient air is INCREASED THREE FOLD to 0.0003 micrograms.
"The Chromium VI is from the processing of raw materials, and we would expect the operator to keep chromium content to a minimum. There would be no commercial attraction for Cemex to use raw materials with a significant chromium content in Rugby."
NO AMBIENT AIR MONITORS!
"The problems at Davenport are a problem for the USA EPA, but suggest a breakdown in raw materials quality control. The EA have not 'found' anything similar
at Rugby." Question: Have you looked? "ERR, well, no, not actually."
UPDATE ON LATEST DUST:
EA not able to prosecute for 17 November thick coating of dust as it was QUITE LEGAL and IN ORDER - from a four-minute ESP trip. The EA has no LEG TO STAND ON, and no legal basis on which to proceed further because, as frequently happens, Cemex say they were either starting up, or shutting down, and thus NO EMISSION LIMITS were in place at the time. So its TOO BAD and TOUGH LUCK RUGBY! Free feather dusters to be distributed to all?
NEW APPLICATIONS
include requests to extend the start up and shut down periods, when no ELVs are in place, which allow all these dust and pollution incidents to go on with no punishment, prosecution or reprimand. They want longer hours without limits, and also waste burning to occur during periods of instability.
The WASTE CLIMAFUEL/RDF is also to have a much larger range of calorific values and also to have much higher contents of pollutants and such as chlorine - which assists in the formation of the deadly dioxins.
NEW INFORMATION SHARING
And were the Rugby residents ever consulted, or even informed about any of this? You guessed it!
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