Sludge Watch ==> Lafarge - wants to burn animal meal , tires, etc

[maureen.reilly at sympatico.ca]

Concrete plans
by Jennifer Pritchett, The Whig-Standard  June 17, 2006


Robert Cumming, resource recovery manager, in front of the rotating kiln at 
Lafarge’s Bath plant, which produces one million tonnes of cement a year
The cylindrical oven is two storeys high, two football fields long and heats 
up to more than 1,200 degrees Celsius.

>From its perch on support platforms rising four storeys off the ground, the 
giant cooker rotates 24 hours a day, seven days a week to heat and mix the 
ingredients that produce one of the most used materials in the world.

One million tonnes of cement or enough to build 70 CN Towers is produced 
yearly at the Lafarge plant just west of Kingston.

All of it is baked in the plant’s 34-year-old kiln, which sits at the heart 
of a public debate about the company’s proposal to burn scrap tires, bone 
meal, pulp and paper products, plastics and municipal waste for fuel.

The alternative fuel sources would replace the coal and petroleum coke the 
plant currently uses to heat the giant oven.

Lafarge wants to transport the waste to its Bath plant by truck from across 
Ontario, Quebec and as many as eight American states.

This week, a Whig-Standard reporter and photographer took a tour of 
Lafarge’s sprawling, 2,251-acre property along Lake Ontario.

The view from the Bath Road entrance to the plant consists primarily of the 
red- and white-painted smoke stack and the white dome where the substance 
used to make cement is stored until it’s shipped to various suppliers 80 per 
cent of which are in the U.S. by ship on the Great Lakes.

The Lake Ontario port Lafarge uses to ship its product is immediately 
opposite the plant. The port and the limestone supply on the property were 
the main reasons the plant was built at this location 34 years ago.

The paved walkway into the plant offices follows immediately underneath the 
pipe-shaped kiln that runs horizontally across the south side of the 
property.

The heat inside the steel cooker is so intense that you can feel a distinct 
increase in temperature as you walk underneath it.

Though it’s operated quietly for more than three decades, Lafarge’s recent 
proposal to burn tires has caused the plant to become a hot topic for 
politicians, area residents and environmentalists.

Kingston politicians have recently called for more review of Lafarge’s 
controversial proposal, and environmental groups say there are concerns with 
the existing operation at the Bath plant.

Public skepticism continues to grow because of fears that people and the 
environment will be harmed by Lafarge’s plan to burn waste in its kiln.

The company has maintained their proposal won’t cause an increase in 
emissions from the plant but will actually result in fewer nitrogen oxide 
emissions, a precursor to smog.


Lafarge is the largest cement producer in the world, with 77,000 employees 
in 75 countries and annual sales of nearly $20 billion (Cdn).

The Ministry of the Environment is reviewing Lafarge’s controversial 
application for the Bath plant.

If approved, it’s set become the first cement plant in Ontario to burn tires 
as fuel.

Kingston politicians have passed a motion, urging the province to hold a 
public hearing into the cement company’s proposal.

Councillors requested that the Ministry of the Environment hold an 
Environmental Review Tribunal Hearing into the plan to burn tires and other 
waste.

“We’re downwind from the Bath plant the emissions can have an effect on air 
quality in Kingston,” said Pittsburgh district councillor Leonore Foster, in 
an interview this week.

If council’s request is granted, a quasi-judicial body will hear evidence 
for and against Lafarge’s proposal in a public hearing that will require 
witnesses to testify under oath, similar to a court of law. An independent 
adjudicator from the ministry will make a decision.

Opponents to the Lafarge project, including residents who live near the 
plant and the environment group Lake Ontario Waterkeeper, have also called 
for a hearing in an effort to make the decision-making process more public.

Residents from Loyalist Township, in which the plant is situated, have also 
called for a hearing.

Sierra Legal, a group of environmental lawyers and scientists that focuses 
on environmental issues, has also agreed to help Loyalist Township 
residents.

Until recently, Kingston politicians had stayed out of the debate.

Two years ago, the city told the private company that it was content to let 
the Ministry of the Environment review the project.

But Foster said council waded back into the debate about the issue after 
councillors heard from many concerned Kingston residents and others who live 
near the Bath plant.

Residents had initially asked that a stringent review, called an 
environmental assessment, be done, but the Ministry of the Environment 
rejected that request in December of 2005.

Now, some residents are focusing on another option available to them. They 
are asking for a public hearing, and Kingston city councillors have endorsed 
their request.

“There are obvious questions, and the public does have concerns,” she said. 
“It does make sense to have a public hearing where people have to speak 
under oath The public have also had the sense that they haven’t had much 
input.”

Council’s decision to ask for an environmental review hearing was followed 
three days later by a full-page ad from Lafarge in last Saturday’s edition 
of The Whig-Standard.

Rob Cumming, Lafarge’s resource recovery manager, said the company’s 
decision to purchase the ad was prompted by a desire to clear up what the 
company sees as some misconceptions about their proposal.

“It’s a new concept in Canada, so it’s our job to explain it,” he said. 
“Unfortunately, there’s a few opponents that have created some confusion 
about the project.”

Initially, the company plans to replace less than 10 per cent of its coal 
and petroleum coke use with alternative fuels. It hopes to eventually 
increase that to 30 per cent.

Cumming said the company’s move to use alternative fuel, such as old tires, 
has already been put in place at 26 Lafarge plants around the world, 
including in France, Brazil, Austria and in eight U.S. states.

He said the concept of burning tires as fuel is new in Canada and is 
therefore being met with some criticism.

“We’re based in Europe and we’ve adopted European standards in Canada, but 
Canada is behind Europe in adopting sustainability practices like using 
alternative fuels.”

He hopes that will change.

Cumming also said that using the waste material will be better for the 
environment because less garbage will go to landfills and other waste sites.

“We’re a company trying to do the right thing,” he said. “From an emissions 
point of view, it’s critical that we start using alternative fuels.”

Lake Ontario Waterkeeper isn’t convinced of the merits of the Lafarge 
proposal.

The environmental watchdog recently filed an application to the Ministry of 
the Environment asking that the public study period be extended until Sept. 
8.

When Waterkeeper requested to see the Lafarge application documents at the 
ministry’s Environmental Assessment and Approvals branch office in Toronto 
on May 10, they were told they needed to be “pre-screened” before they could 
be released to the public.

Though Waterkeeper received the file six days later, the group said there 
were vital documents missing, including Lafarge’s annual monitoring reports.

The environmental watchdog said they have yet to receive those documents.

“In light of the short study period, the numerous relevant reports that were 
not included and the lack of notice to local stakeholders, we do not believe 
that the public has been granted a fair opportunity to study Lafarge’s 
request,” stated Waterkeeper’s letter to the ministry.

Yesterday, the ministry extended the public study period to July 14.

Waterkeeper also has concerns about an existing landfill at the Lafarge site 
that’s used for disposing of waste from the cement-making process. The site 
is located at the north end of the property.

For every 100 tonnes of cement it produces, Lafarge generates four tonnes of 
byproduct material, or cement kiln dust, that is currently sent via a pipe 
using high-powered air to a landfill about a kilometre behind the kiln.

Waterkeeper is also concerned that the landfill doesn’t appear to be using 
the best engineering practices and, as a result, may adversely affect the 
Bath Creek, located roughly two kilometres away.

Waterkeeper said the public should be given a chance to comment on the 
proposal to dump this waste.

Finally, Waterkeeper is alarmed that Lafarge has been operating the northern 
portion of the landfill site on its property for three years without a 
proper long-term management plan, a required component of the company’s 
existing certificate of approval from the ministry.

“Lafarge’s apparent disregard for environmental processes is a real cause 
for concern,” stated Waterkeeper’s letter to the ministry.

Waterkeeper’s Mark Mattson said the ministry should either extend the public 
study period or reject Lafarge’s application.

“This is a poorly planned proposal,” he said. “The list of concerns we have 
are growing as we study it.”

But Cumming said the fact that the company didn’t have a long-term 
management plan filed with the ministry to operate the waste site has been 
blown out of proportion.

“It didn’t say that we couldn’t operate it until we submitted a plan,” he 
said.

“There’s a misunderstanding out there that it’s an application for a new 
landfill site. But it’s really a housekeeping item that requires us to 
submit a long-term management plan as part of the certificate of approval.”

Cumming said the plan hadn’t been filed earlier because it took time to 
prepare. Lafarge hired a consultant, Golder Associates Ltd., to help the 
company produce the plan.

“We wanted to take the time to do it right,” he said.

jpritchett at thewhig.com