By Peter Brooks, Sierra Club Solano Group and Fresh Air Vallejo
Hello from South Vallejo, where residents don't want a cement factory just 450 yards from their elementary school. Just after Labor Day 2015, the City of Vallejo posted a Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) on a proposal to build a shipping terminal and cement grinding facility on the banks of the Napa River.
A newly formed company called Vallejo Marine Terminal plans to build a private, deep-water marine terminal, to bring raw materials to a “green cement” factory run by an Irish company called Orcem (Ecocem in Ireland). VMT/Orcem wants to import slag—an industrial waste product from steel mills in Asia—to be blended with gypsum, limestone and coal-ash to make a product Orcem calls "green cement." These materials would be stored in open-air piles on the waterfront.
The project, adding to the “Bay Area Refinery Corridor,” which already contributes considerable pollution in the surrounding area goes against California’s promise to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and would greatly harm air quality, increase truck traffic, and posing an immediate threat to students at Grace Patterson Elementary School and residents living and working nearby. Even health sciences students at nearby Touro University voiced opposition to the project writing in an op-ed: “These projects carry heavy public health risks that would outweigh their economic benefit to the City of Vallejo.”
Sierra Club supports local opposition led by Fresh Air Vallejo, which has helped delay the project. The public demanded and received three public meetings on the proposal. (Initially, the City had planned just a single public meeting.) Nearly 500 residents submitted questions and comments on the DEIR. Many responses came from postcards that Fresh Air Vallejo handed out at the weekly farmers market.
It has been more than a year since the DEIR became public, and the Vallejo Planning Commission will vote in February or March on the Final Environmental Impact Report.
Here are the biggest problems with the proposed project:
- The DEIR states that residents of South Vallejo can expect 544 truck trips per day on a single residential street.
- Combined, Orcem/VMT will emit nearly 70 tons of nitrogen oxides and “fugitive dust” from its facility each year.
- Ships unloading raw materials will idle their engines for six days at a time; VMT will not supply shore power.
- VMT now promises it won’t handle coal or petroleum coke but the initial DEIR left that option open for discussion.
- Trains, running on tracks unused for more than a decade, will simultaneously block multiple intersections throughout the city.
Environmental justice is also a concern. South Vallejo, the city’s poorest neighborhood, suffers from twice the state average for asthma. As compensation for loss of public access to the waterfront, Orcem/VMT have offered the residents of South Vallejo a kayak ramp at a marina about two miles away.
Many in Vallejo do not believe Orcem's “green” claims. Orcem says recycling slag from steel mills replaces some of the more-polluting aspects of cement. But opponents are quick to point out that bringing raw materials by ship all the way from Asia, plus the tons of fugitive dust and exhaust from trucks, trains, ships and Orcem's three-story cement grinder would quickly eliminate any green benefits Orcem can claim.
By the time Orcem's product gets to market, the "green" will be gone.
What You Can Do:
- Attend the Planning Commission hearing when it is announced. Public testimony will be allowed, and it is critical to show overwhelming opposition to this project.
- Check the Solano Group website which will be updated as soon the date of the Planning Commission meeting is announced where the vote on this issue will take place.
- Write letters to the editor, post on social media, speak to your neighbors and local leaders about the issue