Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat News
The Newsletter of the Great Lakes
Aquatic Habitat Network and Fund
The Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat News is the newsletter of the Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat Network and Fund, published five times per year. The News is intended to provide a forum for the free exchange of ideas among citizens and organizations working to protect aquatic habitats in the Great Lakes Basin.
Volume 14, Number 5 • Winter 2006
Lake Huron Basin Update - U.S. Side
A mercury loophole the size of a cement plant
By Chris Grubb, with contributions from Bill Freese, Huron Environmental Activist League
An environmental struggle in northeast
Michigan involving grassroots activists,
the state Department of Environmental
Quality, and a local cement manufacturer
has illuminated a disturbing fact for
many in that community and around
Michigan: mercury emissions from
cement plants – which can be on par with
emissions from coal-fired power plants –
are virtually unregulated by state and federal clean air agencies.
Alpena, Michigan is located on Thunder Bay of Lake Huron.
Growing up, I always thought of Alpena as that place my friends
went to play in a big hockey tournament every year. It’s not all
hockey pucks and ice fishing, though, according to Bill Freese, a
resident of Alpena and director of the Huron Environmental
Activist League (HEAL). Alpena is home to the Lafarge North
America cement plant: the largest cement plant on the continent.
That was their claim to fame. What they have now is nothing to
brag about.
A Freedom of Information Act request from the state shows that
of four criteria pollutants, SO2, NOx, PM10 and VOCs, the City of
Alpena has a higher level of the first three than the City of
Detroit. But recently, Freese and HEAL have been focused on the
mercury emissions from the facility.
Last year, state regulators learned the cement plant emits up to
580 pounds of mercury per year – about 10 times higher than previously
believed. For comparison’s sake, the state’s largest coal
fired power plant generates emissions of around 600 pounds of
mercury per year, and the total mercury emissions from utilities
around the state is about 2,500 pounds per year (i.e. Lafarge
would make up about 1/5 of the overall). When the Michigan
Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) tried to issue a
permit that would limit the facility’s emissions to 390 pounds per
year the matter wound up in the Circuit Court for the County of
Alpena. The court found the MDEQ’s decision to limit Lafarge’s
mercury emissions to 390 pounds per year to be arbitrary, capricious,
and unauthorized by law.The court said MDEQ exceeded its
authority because the state has no specific regulations dealing
with mercury emissions from cement plants.
Likewise, even after two court rulings instructing it to do so, the
EPA has not set nationwide limits on mercury from cement
plants. That may change soon. After demands from grassroots
activists, legal action by groups like Earthjustice, and prodding
from the National Association of Clean Air Agencies, the EPA is
reconsidering its position and will announce a decision in
December.
Lafarge has pledged voluntary cutbacks and the MDEQ has
created a taskforce with representation from government,
environmental groups, and industry to create mercury emissions
rules for the industry. But it’s unclear what kind of cutbacks
Lafarge is willing to undertake and how aggressively the state
will work toward developing those regulations. An obvious
cutback that Lafarge could make is to replace the fly ash it
currently adds to other raw materials for cement production with
less mercury-contaminated fly ash. The current fly ash, from a
Canadian coal burning power plant, produces over half the total
emissions while representing only five percent of the raw
materials by volume.
Meanwhile there are warnings to limit fish consumption because
of mercury contamination in all of the state’s inland waterways,
including lakes and streams near Alpena.What’s more, according
to a recent Associated Press article, "96 percent of the plant’s
mercury is the type that tends to settle close to home and
accumulate in fish…"
It’s important for state and federal agencies, as well as elected
officials, to hear from grassroots advocates on this issue. Clearly,
mercury emissions from cement plants can have the same damaging
effects as mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants.
Michigan regulators have stepped up to the plate by going
beyond the federal mercury regulations for coal-fired power
plants. They should follow their own lead and take bold action to
drastically reduce mercury emissions from cement plants too.
Visit http://www.earthjustice.org/our_work/campaigns/
cement-kilns.html for more info on cement plant
mercury emissions.
For more information:
Chris Grubb, National Wildlife Federation
PH: 734-769-3351 • FX: 734-769-1449
E-mail: grubbc@nwf.org
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