Posted on 05/08/2008 11:26:37 PM PDT by KTM rider
Regional air pollution regulators have again cited TXI Riverside Cement for allowing plumes of potentially harmful dust to escape its century-old plant north of Riverside.
"Riverside Cement will continue to get notices of violations until they solve their dust problem," Sam Atwood, spokesman for South Coast Air Quality Management District, said Saturday.
A recent air district investigation found that dust from the plant contains hexavalent chromium, a cancer-causing substance that is a byproduct of cement-making.
The plant, located just south of the border between Riverside and San Bernardino counties, was cited for producing dust clouds longer than 100 feet and for allowing dust to cross its property line, according to a memorandum written late Friday by Barry Wallerstein, the air district's executive officer. The agency regulates air pollution in Orange County and the most populated areas of Riverside, San Bernardino and Los Angeles counties.
The district also cited the company Friday for failing to use the best available technologies to control dust.
The dust-release violations stemmed from air district observations on April 14, Wallerstein said in the memo. The district previously issued two citations for a dust episode on April 12.
The violations carry fines as high as $25,000 per day if the plant fails to control the dust, Atwood said.
Hexavalent chromium is known to cause cancer, rashes and other ailments. The air district has estimated that the cancer risk from the hexavalent chromium in neighborhoods near the plant is about 500 cases per million people, about the same risk people who live near freeways face from diesel exhaust.
(Excerpt) Read more at pe.com ...
I am working in a concrete products plant this week and they were testing some new cement from Mexico. I asked why, they said because this nearby plant is shutting down.
the plant has been producing since the turn of the century and produced most of the cement in Southern California in the early days. Riverside cement is very high quality and is famous.
note the low level health hazard. Erin Brokovitch is involved.
BTW, the concrete products plant I am working in employs 90% illegal aliens with fake documentation, when they have a safety meeting and someone gets an award they dont remember their "name" for a while. Very few speek english.
Things like this are just another starw to pile on the camels back. How much can our economy withstand ?
My job is to do physical and chemical analysis of cement. And the stuff I analyze doesn't have chromium.
Dozens of residents who live near the plant aired their complaints and concerns at a community meeting last week.
The same type of folks who buy a house next to an airport and b*tch about the noise.
It seems as if the Orange County officials have had their brains pickled by a worse toxin. Let's just imagine, like they have imagined, what that toxin might be. Should we guess Tequila? Should we guess, local weed? Maybe it is good old bathtub meth? Or, should we guess that it is a philosophical toxin: Marxism? I can imagine clouds of Marxism spewing over the landscape, triggering a cancerous blight on freedom.
That is the objective of those on the left.
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