Midlothian moms fighting cement plant’s pollution plan may be down to their last chance
Nearly a year after forming, a group of Midlothian moms is preparing for what could be their last chance — for now — to voice opposition to a cement company’s plan to dramatically increase the amount of carbon monoxide it can release into the air.
Since September, Midlothian Breathe co-founders Laura Hunt and Abigail Slye have organized community support to stall a permit request filed by Holcim US Inc., a Swiss cement manufacturer that employs more than 130 workers at its Midlothian plant. Those efforts will come to a head on Thursday night, when the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality hosts a virtual public hearing on the permit application.
“We were hoping we could at least postpone until after COVID and get to have a real public meeting,” said Hunt, a pediatrician whose daughter has experienced respiratory issues since the family moved to Midlothian in 2015. “We’ve tried to be as objective and fact-based as possible but it’s kind of to the point where we’re done playing nice. The people that are supposed to represent us in this — we feel they’re not representing us.”
If approved by the TCEQ, the permit would give Holcim permission to increase its maximum output of carbon monoxide from about 4,300 tons to 7,100 tons per year. The plant also emits clouds of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and particulate matter, though it is subject to pollution control measures.
Under the proposed permit, Holcim would also be allowed to burn more petroleum coke, a solid carbon material that resembles coal and can lead to particulate matter pollution, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. If the particles coming out of industrial plants are small enough, they can reach the heart and lungs and cause serious health problems.
Winds from the south and southeast carry pollutants from Midlothian into the Fort Worth and Arlington areas. A 2009 study by Cook Children’s in Fort Worth found a correlation between the cement kilns and higher than average rates of asthma in children in Tarrant County.
Holcim, one of three corporations that operates plants in the Cement Capital of Texas, has maintained it wants the annual emissions cap raised but does not plan to increase pollution. Holcim spokeswoman Jocelyn Gerst wrote in an email that Midlothian plant representatives will attend the public meeting to talk about the application and answer questions from community members.
“We have kept local Midlothian leaders updated on the status of our permit and our commitment to protecting the health and safety of our community,” Gerst wrote. “We feel confident that our permit application allows us to continue to meet all emissions limits.”
Before the announcement of the meeting, Midlothian Breathe funded an independent review of Holcim’s application by Ron Sahu, a mechanical engineer and environmental consultant from California who has completed similar reviews for companies and community groups.
Sahu found that Holcim’s modeling, which shows the TCEQ how emissions of pollutants will disperse throughout the region, uses meteorological data from as far as Corsicana and Shreveport, when meteorological data is available from closer locations, such as Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. While this practice may be approved by the TCEQ, Sahu said, that doesn’t mean the meteorological data used in the analysis is representative of how pollutants may spread through Midlothian.
“Those choices are important because here, when they did the modeling, they are very, very close to the national standard for certain pollutants,” Sahu said. “They’re barely below the standard and therefore it does impose a certain amount of obligation to ensure that the choices that you’re using are representative and correct for that location.”
During its review process, the TCEQ asked Holcim to revise its modeling techniques, though Hunt said it’s unclear if that request was related to Midlothian Breathe’s activism.
The group sent Sahu’s independent review to TCEQ and EPA officials in the hopes of discussing potential changes to the application before the public hearing, Hunt said. Joel Stanford, a team leader for the TCEQ’s air permits division, said in a June email to Hunt that his agency does not typically “provide responses to lengthy items like these” but that he could address Midlothian Breathe’s concerns during the public hearing.
“When they do the public meeting, my understanding is that it’s not to really hear from us or to negotiate,” Hunt said. “Their purpose is to make us feel better about it and kind of silence the resistance. ... That’s why we were trying to negotiate outside of the public meeting.”
However, Hunt has seen the TCEQ and other companies make small concessions as a result of public comments. Sahu said that the TCEQ has appeared to seriously engage with residents’ concerns, though Holcim has kept the group at “arm’s length.”
TCEQ spokesperson Brian McGovern said in an email that the agency will file a formal response to all comments, including those submitted and spoken at the Thursday meeting, and then consider requests for a contested case hearing, which is similar to a civil trial in state district court. Requests must be filed by someone who would be personally affected by the permit.
Hunt and her fellow activists are still considering their options, including filing for a contested case hearing and launching a larger public relations campaign to highlight the differences between Holcim’s practices in the U.S. and Europe. The group may also shift its focus to raising money for air monitors and consulting a toxicologist so Midlothian residents can know exactly how pollutants are affecting air quality.
Midlothian Breathe would consider it a victory if the TCEQ requires Holcim to complete test burns of petroleum coke before the permit is approved to see how it would affect emissions, Hunt said. Any concessions are worth fighting for, she said.
“Especially if it gets approved in its current form and they don’t plan to do the test burns, that’s where we’re really going to focus our efforts and say, ‘OK, we need as many monitors across town as we can so we can track what’s actually happening since TCEQ has determined that they are not going to bother tracking it,’” Hunt said. “If nothing else, we hope that Holcim and the other plants will think twice and think a little more fully before requesting something like this again.”
This story was originally published August 25, 2020 at 2:56 PM.
