Displaying items by tag: Environment

US: Cemex has settled a lawsuit that accused it of discharging polluted storm water runoff from its West Sacramento cement terminal in California into the Sacramento River. The cement producer has agreed to implement an infiltration basin to treat runoff from its unit, according to the Sacramento Business Journal newspaper. It will also make a donation of US$40,000 in grants to environmental projects in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta and pay the legal fees of the plaintiff, the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance. The alliance had originally sought US$88m from Cemex.

Tanzania: The government has given Tanzania Portland Cement two months to reduce its dust emissions or face closure. Alphaxard Kangi Lugola, the Deputy Minister of State in the Vice President's Office (Union and Environment), said that dust from the plant was causing health issues with local residents, according to the Citizen newspaper. The National Environment Management Council will monitor the plant for compliance. The cement producer said that the plant would work on reducing its emissions.

India: Around 1500 villagers have protested against a cement plant that Ramco Cement plans to build in the Jaipur district of Odisha. The protestors have expressed fears that the plant will damage their crops, according to the Pioneer newspaper. A representative of the local government said that the project has already received environmental clearance.

Mexico: Cruz Azul has been forced to partially close its cement plant in Tula, Hidalgo due to a lack of an active environmental clearance certificate. Personnel from the Federal Attorney for Environmental Protection made an inspection of the facilities at the cement plant. When verifying the documentation, they found that it lacked the current authorisation issued by the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources. In this situation, the temporary partial closure of the plant was imposed as a safety measure.

Namibia: Famers have voiced their concerns that a new cement plant being built by Cheetah Cement will affect the water supply for their livestock. The fears have arisen following a notice by the company that it intends to start blasting at the construction site, according to the Namibian newspaper. The farmers have refused to take notice of eviction orders at the site by the Otjiwarongo municipality over risks that the water borehole will become contaminated. The cement plant is a joint venture between China’s Asia-Africa Business Management and Whale Rock Cement.

Egypt: Khaled Fahmy, the Minister of Environment, has recognised the work by subsidiaries of Suez Cement to reduce air pollution and so called ‘black cloud’ periods. The minister presented certificates of appreciation to the manager of Helwan cement plant, Ahmad Ragae, the manager of Tourah cement plant, Omar Khorshid, the manager of the Environment Department at Helwan cement plant, Ragheb Hammouda and the manager of Environment Department at the Tourah cement plant, Badry Ibrahim.

The comic book series 'Watchmen' takes its title from the Latin phrase 'Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?' which is translated as 'Who watches the watchmen?' Commonly used today to warn against government, police and judicial corruption, the saying might also apply to those groups who watch big industry such as the Atlas of Environmental Justice.

This initiative is an online database compiled by the Environmental Justice Organisations, Liabilities and Trade (EJOLT) to map environmental conflicts around the world. It's a great tool, it is professionally presented and the project is backed by the European Commission. EJOLT's goals are to give those fighting for environmental justice a voice and to gather data to allow policy change.

As ever the problem with any form of user-content database is who vets the submissions and how much of 'reality' does the data actually represent compared to a more curated project. The mass use of Wikipedia shows that these issues can be overcome to some extent, while user-submitted online hotel and restaurant reviews often suggest otherwise.

All three conflicts registered in the EJ Atlas in southern England, where the Global Cement office is based, offer incomplete or misleading data. The entry for the third runway expansion at Heathrow airport doesn't present the economic benefits of expanding the airport or what the alternatives are. Rightly, the activists will argue that they have significantly smaller resources compared to the big industrial multinationals to fight their corner. Unfortunately this shows in the EJ Atlas and the user-submitted data approach it uses.

At the time of writing only 15 cases are tagged as cement-related out of a total of 1154. This is far fewer cases than you might expect with no mention, for example, of any of the regular environmental scuffles the cement industry faces in North America. The cases it does list are mainly based in Latin America with other clusters in southern Europe and India. Of these, three have been mislabelled and are not even related to the cement industry. The rest are mainly concerned with pollution due to waste incineration and mineral extraction worries. The waste incineration listings have a certain irony about them considering that these cement plants are almost certainly praising themselves for their reduced carbon emissions!

In the online world big companies can sometimes be at a disadvantage to nimble activist campaigns. Journalists from national media outlets can easily find campaigns with a web or social media presence to provide counterpoint for editorial. A good example is the Stop Titan Action Network that formed to fight Titan America's cement plant in Castle Hayne in North Carolina, US.

If the EJ Atlas accrues more attention and/or carries on past its project deadline of 2015 then the problems with the atlas may be fixed as activists log more cases, industry refutes them and the moderators weigh up the arguments in line with the project's aims of environmental justice. As previous online examples have shown, engagement may be better than ignoring these kind of initiatives.