From Downwinders at Risk - Excerpts follow;
Industry representatives asked the Bush administration yesterday to forego tighter restrictions on mercury and hydrogen chloride (HCI) emissions from cement kilns, saying new regulation was not needed.
"It's deplorable that the cement industry would spend its resources lobbying the White House rather than cleaning up the toxic mess it makes," Frank O'Donnell, director of the nonprofit group Clean Air Watch, said in an e-mail.
But Andrew O'Hare, vice president for regulatory affairs at the Portland Cement Association, said the meeting was to update regulators on what steps the industry had taken to address outstanding concerns. He described mercury as "a more difficult nut to crack for our industry because it's so tied to our raw materials."
You can read this well written article here.
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2 comments:
There is another interesting development here. As electric utilities reduce their emissions, it is likely that the mercury content of their ash will go up. This ash is often used by cement manufacturers. I heard at a presentation that the EPA is requiring cement manufacturers to verify that the Hg content of the ash they use will not increase. I do not have any links available at this time but this may be a good item to pursue and research further.
The weak legislation that the EPA did pass recently about cement kiln mercury emissions included a piece about not allowing any ash from plants using mercury abatement technology. I would have to look at it closer to gt the exact language.
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