Bath residents fume over plan to use tires as fuel

A cement factory in Bath, Ont., wants to burn old tires in its kiln, a proposal that has infuriated local residents who say the tires will produce bad smells and black smoke in this community just west of Kingston.

Angry citizens have demanded a halt to the conversion of the Lafarge SA furnace until the provincial Ministry of the Environment can conduct a full environmental assessment.

Clayton McKewen, reeve of Loyalist Township, wants a province-wide moratorium on the burning of alternative fuels until experts determine whether they are as safe as the company claims.

"The province has to make a decision one way or another," he told CBC News. "By asking for an environmental assessment, we will hopefully get some of the information the folks out there are wanting."

The issuehas divided the community of Bath and caused long delays at Lafarge, a mammoth French company that is one of the biggest producers of cement in the world, with 80,000 employees in 76 countries.

One of its smaller plants is located on the shores of Lake Ontario in the community of Bath, where it currently uses coal to fuel its cement kilns.

The company wants to burn old tires because coal is expensive and dirty. It spreads dust, and acid can leach through the stockpile into the local groundwater.

Old tires, the company says, burn much cleaner with no smell, no smudge and no acid run-off. There will be no increase in pollution, the company says, because the tires are entirely consumed by the heat inside the kiln using a technology widely used in Europe.

Burning old tires also obviates the need for coal mines, coal trains and dirty coal ports. And the practice consumes thousands of old tires that would otherwise pile up in landfill sites and dumps across Ontario.

Lafarge says an environmental assessment is unnecessary and time-consuming.

"Every question has been answered under the Environmental Protection Act," said Lafarge spokesman Rob Cumming. "An environmental assessment would only delay a project that we need in order to improve our emissions."

The province is taking a neutral position for the time being. A spokeswoman for the Ministry of the Environment told CBC News Wednesday that the province is studying the Lafarge proposal before it considers issuing the two permits, for air and waste emissions, that Lafarge would need before it can convert its furnace to tires.

"We are looking at how they plan to manage their air emissions," the spokeswoman said, adding that the ministry has already extended the public consultation period four times, to last April, because of the public concern over the proposed plant conversion.

She noted that Lafarge intends toswitch only 30 per cent of its fuel supplyto tires and other alternative fuels, using conventional fuels for the remainder.

As for the tires, she said the province accumulates about 11 million old automobile tires a year. About 40 per cent are recycled as retreads, running tracks, ship bumpers, handbags and fuels, leaving 6.5 million for the province's landfill sites.