My name is William Freese and I am the director of the 

Huron Environmental Activist League. I live in Alpena, 

Michigan. For over 76 years I have lived, except for 

time in the military in the early 50s , from 1 to 5 miles 

away from the largest 100 plus year old cement plant in 

North America. Since 1991 we have been fighting to end 

the pollution from this plant. 

Not only is it one the largest but, according to at recent 

USEPA Toxic Release Inventory, it is the dirtiest such 

facility, by point source pollution, in North America. A 

FOIA that we obtained compared the City of Alpena to 

the City of Detroit for criteria pollutants. For 3 out of 4, 

nitrous oxide, sulphur dioxide, PM 2.5 and VOCs the 

City of Alpena had higher levels of the first three than 

the City of Detroit. 

Cement plants were built to crush rock and make 

cement and not to be an incinerator. We have lived with 

the pollution you could see, fugitive dust, to what we 

have now which is extremely toxic air pollution. We 

now know what you can't see, can hurt you more. 

The former owner, National Gypsum, was taken over in 

a leveraged buyout in late 1985 by the French 

conglomerate Lafarge Coppee. The plant was shut 

down in 1986. It reopened in 1988 with the goal to 

become the largest hazardous waste burning facility in 

North America. Lafarge had a permit to burn 17 

million gallons of hazardous waste per year in 3 of their 
5 kilns but wanted a permit to increase that to 21 

million gallons per year to burn it in all 5 kilns. 

The hazardous waste came from everywhere and as far 

away as Alaska. Our group's persistence and testimony 

kept that from happening and Lafarge stopped burning 

liquid hazardous waste in late 2001. 

The air pollution did not end. Lafarge found other 

wastes to add to their toxic soup. A limited amount of 

chlorine free non halogenated plastic is now unlimited. 

It was supposed to be stripping of plastic coating from 

milk and juice cartons. It now comes from a recycling 

concepts company. If it is plastic from injection molding 

then the release used is enough to contaminate that 

plastic. Even though we have requested the MDNR& E 

and USEP A to test the plastic and the contents of the 

tankers we have no reason to believe that it has been 

done. 

Then there is the so called safe pesticide broth from 

Dow Agra. Thousands of gallons have been brought to 

Lafarge to inject in their kilns. If they need water they 

pump 3 million gallons of water per day back into the 

lake. Dow's incinerator is over 100 miles closer than 

bringing it to Lafarge. Why bring it to Alpena? We had 

an anonymous phone call and the caller said Dow was 

afraid of whatever was in some of those tankers would 

show up in their stack emissions and they were being 

diverted her because our enforcement was lax. 
The latest liquid now being brought here to inject in the 

kilns is ammonia. We were concerned when the storage 

tanks for liquid hazardous wastes were not removed 

and the lack of oversight and enforcement do not help. 

Of most concern is the 450,000 tons per year of toxic 

Canadian coal fly ash which is another form of 

Canadian garbage coming to Michigan. The ash is 

responsible for over 50°/o of the mercury emissions from 

Lafarge and 96°/o of that mercury is the most toxic form 

that will be found in combustion stacks ... the oxidized, 

divalent and ionic form of mercury. It is responsible for 

Lafarge being one of the highest mercury emitters in 

the state and places the Lafarge cement plant in the top 

five mercury emitting facilities in the nation. 

The Portland Cement Association that represents the 

cement companies states that forcing the cement plants 

to comply with The Clean Air Act rules is too costly and 

will force many of the plants to close and open the way 

for foreign competition. As for foreign competition, who 

would that be? In the early 1990s an article in The 

Nation, The Sultans of Cement, stated four foreign 

members of cement cartel already controlled 75 percent 

of all the cement production in North America. They 

are even more powerful today. Sorry, but wrapping 

themselves in an American flag and asking us to protect 

themselves from each other does not cut it. 

We have in our files copies of over 500 environmental 

violations or notices of violation by Lafarge. These are 
only the tip of the iceberg as for every one that was 

issued at least ten was missed. An enforcement 

confidential document that we obtained had penalties 

for the dumping of CKD at over 21 million end up at 

less than 1 million after Lafarge got $750,000 as an 

environmental improvement to build a storage dome for 

that Canadian coal ash. Most violation fines ended up 

as a tap on their fingernail. 

A Rutgers University study of blood in of 18 of 24 

Alpena residents living near the Lafarge cement kilns. 

Lead in their blood could be traced 75 Percent of the 

time back to the Lafarge cement kiln dust. Core soil 

testing by a team of scientists found that the heavy 

metals were in the top 2 centimeters of the soil and were 

not naturally occurring but were from airborne from 

cement plant emissions and fugitive dust. The dioxin 

2378 TCDD or Agent Orange Dioxin was found in some 

of these samples. That could be the reason for the large 

number of diabetics in Alpena. The lead scientist stated 

that if he lived here he would not east anything grown 

in our soil. 

Hazardous wastes containing chlorinated compounds 

when burnt are a precursor of dioxin. Dioxin was also 

found in the waste cement kiln dust that was dumped 

by open trucks into the active Lafarge quarry and 

blown every direction that the wind blew. In an air 

monitor at a school nearest to Lafarge 14 dioxins and 

furans were found including 2378 TCDD, the Agent 

Orange dioxin, way above the then safe limit. There is 
now no safe limit for dioxin. 43 o/o of Vietnam veterans 

exposed to Agent Orange are diabetic. We average near 

one person per day here being diagnosed with diabetes 

here in Alpena. What does the future hold for those 

children attending the school near that monitor. 

We have more than our share of auto immune diseases, 

but our biggest heath problem is cancer. We have our 

own 3 million dollar cancer center. It opened in 2001. In 

2002 it had 3,000 visits. In 2008 the visits have increased 

to 11,500. We are only a county of about 30,000 

residents but we have heard that our cancer ratio is 1 of 

every 5 to 1 of every 8. 

There is an old saying that man is only here for one 

reason and that is to die. We do not need help to make it 

happen sooner than we want. Our health and welfare 

should not be sacrificed in backroom deals. You, the 

USEP A, have been ordered by the courts to enforce the 

standards of the Clean Air Act and we are still waiting. 

William Freese, Director 

Huron Environmental Activist League