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| photography by Billy Surface |
This summer, two UNT students did something that had never been done before: undergrad Amanda Caldwell (left) and grad student Susan Waskey tallied all the emission reports submitted to state and federal governments by the three cement plants and adjacent steel mill in Midlothian. They found that from 1990 to 2006, the industrial plants belched 986,509,069 pounds of harmful air pollution into North Texas skies, including 10,000 pounds of mercury and 91,000 pounds of lead. But good news came in October. On the 14th, TXI stopped firing its wet kilns by burning hazardous waste, marking the first time in 22 years that not a single cement company in Midlothian was using that dirty production method. Then, on October 28, the EPA announced that this summer North Texas saw the lowest levels of ozone in three decades. For these improvements, you can thank, among others, the Downwinders at Risk. Many North Texas cities have adopted “green cement” policies at the urging of the environmental group. And, in fact, it was at the Downwinders’ behest that Caldwell and Waskey undertook their two-month project. “I volunteered in a moment of weakness,” says Waskey, seen here in front of TXI’s wet kilns. “The good news is nice to see, but all the credit goes to Downwinders at Risk.”
