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U.S. EPA FINES MITSUBISHI CEMENT FOR FAULTY AIR POLLUTION MONITORING

Release Date: 2/17/1999
Contact Information: Dave Schmidt, U.S. EPA, (415) 744-1578

NOTE TO CORRESPONDENTS

      (San Francisco) -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) today announced that the Mitsubishi Cement Corp.'s Cushenbury Plant in Lucerne Valley in San Bernardino County has agreed to pay a civil penalty of $53,200 to settle alleged violations of the federal Clean Air Act involving failure to adequately monitor particulate air pollution.

     The Mitsubishi cement plant's managers corrected the problem after U.S. EPA notified them that the facility was not in compliance with the Clean Air Act's New Source Performance Standards for portland cement plants, which requires daily monitoring of the opacity of smokestack emissions.  The regulation covers sources of air pollution that have been built or modified since 1971.  The Mitsubishi plant was modernized in the early 1980s, when it was owned by Kaiser Cement, and therefore is subject to "new source" requirements. Mitsubishi has submitted monitoring data to U.S. EPA showing that they have correctly monitored emissions since July, 1998.

     The regulation requires the owner or operator of a cement plant to monitor visible emissions from kiln and clinker cooler operations either by installing a continuous opacity monitoring system or conducting daily visible emissions testing.  Observations must be performed during normal operations and for three six-minute periods each day.  

     Frequent monitoring of the opacity of smokestack emissions is necessary to prevent excess emissions of particulates, the tiny particles or droplets contained in visible smoke that can penetrate deep into people's lungs and cause respiratory problems, ranging from short-term coughs and wheezing to serious diseases such as emphysema.