People living downwind of cement plants like the one outside Baltimore should breathe easier, as the federal government has ordered major reductions in emissions of mercury and other toxic pollutants from them.
The Environmental Protection Agency made final Monday rules for cement kilns, imposing the first mercury pollution limits for existing facilities while tightening emission curbs on new plants. When fully in force by 2013, the EPA's action should result in a 92 percent reduction nationwide in releases of mercury, a widespread fish contaminant that can damage children's developing brains.
The rules also should lead to similarly large drops in emissions of harmful fine particles, acid gases and other pollutants, EPA projects.
A Portland cement industry group warned that the pollution limits would require US plants to spend "several billion" dollars collectively on controls and could force some older facilities to close. But EPA estimates the health benefits far outweigh the costs.
The new rules pose no major problems for Lehigh Cement Co.'s plant in Union Bridge, according to plant manager Kent Martin. Indeed, the Carroll County plant expects to achieve the new mercury limit a year earlier than EPA requires, he said in an email, because of a pollution-reduction accord the company struck last year with the Maryland Department of the Environment.
The company agreed to slash mercury emissions last year in return for state permission to burn dried fertilizer or pelletized sewage sludge in making its cement.
As for the other pollution reductions, Martin wrote that the Maryland plant is "well positioned" to meet them because it's newer than many other cement facilities and because of the mix of raw materials it uses.
(2009 Baltimore Sun photo by Jed Kirschbaum)