Gas emissions might shrink as a Carroll cement company starts to burn a cleaner alternative to coal ? but not the black grit that coats Aric Magwire?s pool.
“The stacks turn our swimming pools black,” said Magwire, who lives across the street from Lehigh Cement Co. in Union Bridge. “If you leave your truck outside, you have to wash it every day.”
Lehigh Cement Co. has started test runs for burning biosolids, or treated sewage sludge.
“This material burns very clean, so when you talk about emissions like sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide, it will be the same or less than with coal,” plant manager said Kent Martin.
The black stuff is called clinker, the dust created during the cement-making process, and only dumps on neighboring residents? houses “during equipment malfunctions,” Martin said.
“We?ve gotten accustomed to it,” said Jane Selby, who has lived across the street from Lehigh for more than 50 years. “But I know young people who have moved here, and they complain. But I?ve survived.”
The plant wants to burn biosolids, which are trucked in from Baltimore, as a cheaper and cleaner alternative fuel source that, unlike coal, will never run out.
Lehigh, a German company since the 1970s, has at least six plants burning biosolids in Europe, but the Union Bridge factory will become the first in the United States to use the sustainable fuel.
It obtained a temporary permit from Carroll County last year to store the biosolids in a 500-ton silo and needs more time to perfect the process, Martin said.
The county will hold a public hearing Thursday on extending the plant?s storage permit for another year.
So far, the county has not received any public feedback on the proposed extension, said Kim Millender, county attorney.
