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CEMEX is a Global 2000 Mexican multinational materials company. They manufacture and distribute cement, ready-mix concrete and aggregates in 50 countries. The CEMEX Lyons plant produces cement, which is the main basic ingredient of ready-mix concrete. Cement is largely produced from combining limestone, shale, and silica from local mines & quarries; the Dowe Flats mine adjacent to the CEMEX Lyons plant is where the majority of the plant’s raw materials were sourced from until 2022, when its permit expired. Materials are now being trucked in from various facilities up to 90 miles away. To combine the ingredients, the plant burns coal (approximately 7 tons per day), and heats a kiln to >2300 deg F.

TLDR: We might need cement, but not all cement is created equal (with equal emissions). And Colorado has plenty.

Colorado actually produces a surplus of cement, and is a NET EXPORTER. Research shows that Colorado ships out about 10% of our state's total production, and the CEMEX Lyons plant is a small operator (permitted with 1960s air quality standards) that only produces somewhere in the neighborhood of 10% of our state's cement, so it's a bit of a wash. Further evidence to this is the fact that the Dowe Flats mine has only operated for 4 days per week for the majority of its 25 year permit; that leaves roughly 10 years of opportunity to mine unused. During the recent Boulder County Planning Commission hearings, CEMEX intimated that they only mine enough to meet demand [because of limited storage capabilities at the plant], which just tells you that there isn’t that much demand even with exporting material to other states.

CEMEX’s competitor, LafargeHolcim, received a $1.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to research and develop a system to capture and sequester the plant’s carbon dioxide emissions and is installing it at their Florence, CO plant, and it should be live by 2024. (Source) This would result in almost a zero carbon footprint.

Even a plant that's 20 years old produces about 50% less emissions than a 50-year old plant like CEMEX Lyons. CEMEX Lyons is Boulder County’s #1 polluter emitting over 357,000 tons of CO2 every year. For context, our County’s #2 polluter, the University of Colorado Power Plant, only emits 55,000 tons of CO2 per year (Source: EPA).

CEMEX produces cement, which is an ingredient of concrete, and that is shipped to batch plants to mix into concrete. There is a misconception that by CEMEX being proximal, the citizens of Boulder County and surrounding areas have more access to concrete for building purposes. That is not true. Cement is delivered very efficiently via rail to delivery terminals, and concrete is mobilized through batch plants located across the state. 13 states in the US don't have any cement production and get cement with ease, and without paying exorbitant rates.

The CEMEX Lyons Plant was constructed in 1969, and was subsequently permitted to operate by the State of Colorado. Adjacent quarries were mined for decades until exhausted. The Dowe Flats Mine began mining operations September 30, 1997 with a 25 year permit granted by Boulder County, ending September 30, 2022.

What is CEMEX’s Environmental Impact?

CEMEX Lyons is the #1 polluter in Boulder County, emitting 357,000 tons of CO2 per year per the EPA.

• For context, Boulder County’s #2 polluter (the CU Power Plant) only emits 55,000 tons of CO2 per year.

• The plant was also subject to a $1 million settlement with DOJ and EPA for Nitrogen Oxide (NOx) emissions, a result from a $10.3M expansion project conducted from 1997-2000, in 2013.

Cement Kiln Dust (CKD) fugitive dust plumes at CEMEX Lyons are also a well chronicled problem. Local residents have been the sole, de facto monitoring mechanism for this for decades.

• Following up on one such complaint in early 2022, the Colorado Department of Reclamation, Mining, and Safety (DRMS) references the frequent issues at the plant and noted that the CKD disposal pit was not serviced for a number of days, which resulted in the reported dust emissions. The inspector noted, “it appears the operator is not effectively controlling wind erosion of these materials”. (Source) CKD can be incredibly harmful and toxic to humans, wildlife and the environment, and that there is an unfathomable amount of it generated and then buried at the CEMEX plant site.

When reviewing CEMEX’s long history of environmental violations (~500 pages of violations were submitted by the Town of Lyons to County Planning Staff for public record in the recent hearings on this application), there is a clear pattern that CEMEX pays the fines for their environmental violations rather than fixing the root issues. Michael Clausen of CEMEX often uses the phrase, the plant “would never do anything that would risk its permits”. We believe he is referencing the plant’s legal nonconforming status, and any improvements or accessories added would trigger a County review of the plant’s nonconforming status, thus risking its permits altogether. The only exception to this is when an agency *requires* CEMEX to make an improvement. The majority of the improvements noted on the ~500 pages of violations were *suggested* to avoid future incidents, so in most cases the fines were paid, no improvements were made, and incidents persisted.