Titan America Cement Plant

Titan America has proposed building the country’s fourth largest cement plant near Wilmington, North Carolina. Comprising a cement kiln and an expanded rock quarry, the plant would require the destruction of some 1,000 acres of wetlands and would be a major new source of mercury pollution in the Northeast Cape Fear River—a waterway already impaired by the dangerous neurotoxin. The facility would also emit significant quantities of other pollutants, including carbon monoxide, lead, benzene, and hydrochloric acid, as well as heat-trapping carbon dioxide.

Environmental Analysis in the Works

SELC and the Duke Environmental Law and Policy Clinic have urged state regulators to delay issuing an air-quality permit for the plant until completion of a thorough analysis of the project’s impact on the environment, public health, and surrounding communities. A team of state and federal agencies, local community groups, and environmental organizations is slated to conduct this analysis in collaboration with the Army Corps of Engineers.

A Hazard for Human Health

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, eight percent of American women of childbearing age have mercury in their bodies at levels high enough to put their babies at risk of birth defects, loss of IQ, learning disabilities, and developmental problems. Toxic mercury accumulates in people and wildlife when they breathe contaminated air and eat contaminated fish.