I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
Home video taken by a resident in 2008 showed fugitive dust at the cement transfer station.
American Cement officials and the Greater Gardner Neighborhood Association met Tuesday night to create a community advisory panel (CAP) to help the company minimize neighborhood impacts from the company’s transfer facility in Albuquerque’s North Valley.
The North Valley group will be just one of three CAPs planned for New Mexico and at least five nationwide, parent company Grupo Cementos de Chihuahua (GCC) Environment Manager Kevin M. Adams told The Independent — part of the company’s new push to build community trust and good will in the face of new federal restrictions on pollution from cement facilities.
The groups will cut out regulators and allow residents and company officials to communicate directly and regularly — a welcome development, according to several residents who attended the meeting.
“We’re working on a corporate sustainability plan on social, economic and environmental sustainability,” Adams said. “Being a good neighbor affects the business. Right now if we asked to expand operations, the community would say no. But if two years from now, if we’ve earned their trust, the answer might be different.”
The other community groups will be established in Tijeras – home to GCC’s cement kiln — and Elida, N.M., home of another cement transfer facility. CAPs are being organized in Colorado and South Dakota, Adams said.
Residents and state lawmakers said they were cautiously optimistic about the CAP’s prospects after Wednesday’s meeting, the creation of which follows a series of contentious meetings last year over the company’s operations schedule, air pollution and asthma rates that pitted residents against company officials and City of Albuquerque Air Quality Division staffers.
“I can’t speak for everybody here, but speaking for myself, this is empowering for people in the community,” resident Byron Gatwood said after the meeting. “We’re dealing directly with the company now. This came about as a result of our feeling the (Albuquerque) Air Quality Division was not advocating for the community.”
Air Quality Division officials did not attend the meeting.
“I came to see how the process is going,” state Rep. Ed Sandoval, D-Albuquerque, said. “I think it’s a good starting point — a good first step.”
The CAP is the first such group since a 1970s partnership between area residents and a sawmill, Sen. Dede Feldman told The Independent.
The meeting was first of several planned for the creation of the CAP, and focused on a draft charter and discussions about the reporting to neighbors and city air quality officials of pollution events at the transfer station. After residents have read and responded to the draft charter, the group will meet again to agree on a final structure for the group.
The CAP should have a formal mechanism for conflict resolution between residents and the company, Feldman and some residents said. When conflicts on the CAP cannot be resolved, residents may have no recourse other than to attend public permit hearings to lodge their complaints, Adams acknowledged.
Part of the mission of the CAP was to improve company transparency and communication with the community, Adams and spokesman José Madera said.
Madera presented the latest chemical analyses of heavy metals in the cement and fly ash transported at the facility. The data indicated an increased concentration of lead and arsenic over previous months’ lab tests, but company officials said they would discuss the lab tests in detail at a future meeting.
Asked about the volume of material handled at the transfer station, Madera said that information is “proprietary” and the company would hesitate to release it.
“That information would be useful to our competitors,” Madera said. “We’d hesitate because of the competitive disadvantage in these hard economic times.”
“Industrial spying does happen,” Adams added. “I’ve had a competitor hire a law firm to check on our air permit filings each month just in case we let some confidential business information slip.”
Asked by North Valley Coalition president Chris Catechis if company representatives on the CAP would have “full authority and backing to reach agreements,” Adams said that “really important” decisions will require company approval.
The company is installing fugitive dust detectors on its storage silos, Madera said.
“We hope to have that done by the end of this week,” Madera said.
But the company has no plans to install dust detectors on the facility’s perimeter fence, as some residents had asked, he said to the frustration of some in the audience.
“If we had a fence-line monitor, we’d have a better idea of what gets out when ‘exceedence’ events occur,” said Kristine Suozzi of the New Mexico Health Equity Working Group. But the company’s current agreement with the neighborhood association only requires monitors on the silos, Adams said.
Such an “exceedance” occurred Aug. 4, when employees created a plume of cement dust while cleaning a truck at the transfer facility, Madera acknowledged.
Greater Gardner Neighborhood Association board member Kyle Silfer played a videotape for the audience, showing a thick plume of dust drifting across the facility.
The neighborhood association told plant officials about the event Aug. 25, and the company had notified the Air Quality Division by Aug. 26, Madera said.
“These events occurred at a higher rate two or three years ago,” Madera said. “Now it’s becoming more sporadic. GCC’s working toward zero emissions. We want to be good corporate citizens. These events cost us money.”
“The Aug. 4 emissions event recorded on video would not have been mitigated by the new bag leak detectors,” Silfer noted. “Just more evidence that this facility’s location near so many residences is inherently problematic.”
North Valley residents would like to coordinate with the other CAPs, Silfer said.
Tijeras and Elida residents may contact Silfer at ggna@macmountain.org or GCC Environmental Manager Kevin Adams at kadams@gcc.com or (303) 359-8071.
