Displaying items by tag: Orcem Americas

US: Orcem Americas, a subsidiary of Ireland’s Ecocem, has been refused planning permission to build a slag cement plant in Vallejo, California. The cement producer was hoping to build a US$50m grinding plant but it faced opposition from local residents on environmental grounds, according to the Irish Times. The issues for the planners was an anticipated increase in the number of trucks on local roads and pollution from the plant. Orcem Americas can now appeal the decision to Vallejo’s City Council if it chooses.

US: Irish cement maker Ecocem's US subsidiary, Orcem Americas, has been accused of attempting to influence the planning process in Vallejo, California, where it wants to build a US$50m grinding mill. The mill would be the group's first venture in the US. However, the town's residents are objecting to the proposal on environmental grounds.

The company recently found itself at the centre of a row over its involvement with an unofficial economic committee of Vallejo's city council that some local politicians and campaigners say could potentially breach California law.

Orcem is represented on the Mare Island Straits Economic Development Committee, which is made up of local council members, state officials and private sector interests. Its involvement in the committee, alongside the city's Deputy Mayor, Jess Malgapo, at a time when it was seeking permission to build its facility at a sensitive site in Vallejo, sparked anger among the project's opponents. Some of them have claimed that its activities have potentially breached the Brown Act, a California law that guarantees the public's right to attend and take part in meetings of local councils and legislative bodies. However, the councillors involved, including Malgapo, deny the act was breached, saying that the committee was established to aid the city's economic development and not to pass legislation.

US: Irish cement maker Ecocem's proposed manufacturing plant in San Francisco Bay faces a potential planning setback after receiving almost 500 submissions challenging its environmental impact report.

Ecocem is seeking permission for a US$50m grinding plant in Vallejo, close to San Francisco, in the group's first venture in the US, but the town's residents are objecting to the proposal on environmental grounds. According to local reports, some 400 - 500 people and organisations have questioned the company's assessment of the plant's likely impact on the environment, which could force Vallejo's council to delay a decision on planning permission until 2016. The council was hoping to have cleared all planning hurdles by December 2015, but local sources have said that the volume of questions posed during a 60-day public consultation period means the deadline could be pushed back to March 2016.

California law requires Ecocem's subsidiary, Orcem Americas, which is directly responsible for the project, to answer the questions before preparing a final environmental impact report. The city's Architectural Heritage and Landmarks Commission will have to decide whether the buildings that would be knocked to make way for the plant are historic, which is likely to happen in December 2015. The proposal will then have to pass both the Vallejo Planning Commission and then get the support of a majority of councillors before it can get the go ahead.

According to local activist Peter Brooks, a group of citizens recently began a petition to remove four council members said to favour Ecocem's project. He also said that influential US environmental group, the Sierra Club, wrote to the city's authorities expressing concerns about the plans.

Ecocem wants to build the plant on the site of an old flour mill in the city's harbour. It would grind furnace slag from iron smelting that is then used as a component in cement. The process cuts greenhouse gas emissions from normal cement manufacture by 90%.