Cement Plant

The Carroll County Sheriff's Office is reporting that a man is in serious condition after a workplace accident that occurred Monday at Lehigh Portland Cement near Union Bridge. According to the Sheriff's Office, just after 2 p.m. Feb. 20, deputies responded to the cement company site on Quaker Hill Road for reports of an injured man. The man, identified by the Sheriff's Office as Steve Fleming, 46, was reportedly repairing monitoring equipment under a conveyer belt when a skid loader backed over him. The man was taken to the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore, where he was in serious condition as of Monday late afternoon, according to the sheriff's office.

Environmental laws do get enforced, however slowly at times.  The Maryland Department of the Environment announced Wednesday it had taken action against about 18 individuals, companies and local governments for alleged violations of the state's laws governing lead paint and air and water pollution. Some of the violators listed in the department's release have paid or agreed to pay more than $100,000 in all in penalties, while state regulators are seeking more than twice that much combined in fines against the others.

A cement plant in Carroll County that is one of the state's top mercury polluters has agreed to slash its emissions of that highly toxic metal and of harmful particle pollution as well, state officials announced yesterday. Lehigh Cement Co.'s Union Bridge plant has voluntarily agreed to reduce its mercury emissions 80 percent by March 2012, according to the Maryland Department of the Environment. That would be a year earlier than the plant would have had to make reductions under new federal pollution regulations proposed earlier this year.

Residents around Sparrows Point filed suit Thursday against the owners of the Baltimore County steel mill and a cement plant on the peninsula, contending that neighbors' health has been put at risk and their property contaminated by pollution from industrial activities there. The suit, filed in Baltimore County Circuit Court, seeks damages from RG Steel and LaFarge North America for exposing surrounding residents to hazardous and carcinogenic air pollutants, a gritty dust called "kish" and "noxious stenches and odors.

Overheated lubricating oil in the gears of the No. 1 kiln at Lehigh Portland Cement Co. in Union Bridge apparently ignited a fire at the plant about 1 p.m. yesterday.No one was injured, but firefighters had to rotate personnel every 15 minutes because of the intense heat inside the kiln, fire officials said.The plant remained open and employees continued to work in other parts of the facility. The blaze was confined to the kiln, which firefighters said suffered no structural damage.Fire units from Union Bridge, New Windsor, Taneytown, Westminster,and Libertytown and New Midway of Frederick County were dispatched to the one-alarm blaze.

Two employees of Lehigh Portland Cement Co. were taken to Carroll County General Hospital after they were sickened by fumes at the Union Bridge plant yesterday.The men said they had dizziness and severe headaches, apparently brought on by incomplete combustion of fuel during a kiln-preheating procedure, company officials said.The men, from the company's electrical maintenance and repair division, became ill after going into the area of the No. 4 kiln about 10 a.m., the officials said.Emergency equipment was dispatched to the cement plant when one employee went to the area and suffered severe headaches.

Workers and management at Lehigh Portland Cement Co. say their relationship has improved so much they plan to bury the hatchet at a ceremony this morning at the Union Bridge plant."

The kids are back in school, and they're almost in the swing of doing their homework before they turn on the television in the evenings. They're getting used to the weight of backpacks, brown bag lunches and the school bus schedule.On Labor Day night, our family took the time to say an official goodbye to summer by taking one last dip in the local swimming pool. We were the only people there at 7 p.m., and it was a luxury to have it to ourselves. The water was chilly, and the sun set quickly -- no more steaming evening heat.

UNION BRIDGE -- When the dust falls on this Carroll Count town from the Lehigh Portland Cement Co., some people call it "gold dust," illustrating the town's financial dependence on its largest employer.Now, though, the cement manufacturer that has enjoyed a lofty status here for almost 70 years finds itself the target of angry residents, who worry that its plans to burn industrial waste for fuel may turn the gold dust into a toxic nightmare.Lehigh Portland is seeking permission from the state to burn "non-hazardous" waste materials from a New Jersey chemical plant that has been designated for cleanup by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Superfund.

HUDSON, N.Y. - The tourism industry has worked hard in recent years to cast the Hudson River Valley as a ruddy-cheeked play land of nature, history, art and cute-as-a-button Victorian bed-and-breakfast hotels. But here in this old factory town 100 miles north of New York, you see the grittier truth: The Hudson Valley was also the nation's first industrial heartland. Before River Rouge and Pittsburgh steel, before Chicago had shoulders, the mills of the mighty Hudson roared and belched their fire.

WEATHER Today's forecast calls for highs in the upper 60s and a chance for morning showers. Lows are expected to be around 50 degrees tonight. TRAFFIC Check our traffic map for this morning's issues as you plan your commute. FROM LAST NIGHT... Actor Kevin Bacon judges charity competition at College Park : The movie star brought his star power to a charity event Wednesday at the University of Maryland. But the cheers the actor received were not as loud as the hoots and hollers directed toward the six student groups competing for $5,000 toward their favorite causes.

For nearly a century, Carroll County's smallest town has supplied stone to the massive Lehigh Cement Co. plant that employs many in the community. But the company finds itself at a crossroads — with the quarry nearly depleted, it is eyeing a new supply from a limestone-rich mine that it owns in another town. The company's plan: Construct a 4.5-mile conveyor system that would run under roads, rails and streams — and over acres of protected farmland between the quarry and the plant in Union Bridge.

The Carroll County Sheriff's Office is reporting that a man is in serious condition after a workplace accident that occurred Monday at Lehigh Portland Cement near Union Bridge. According to the Sheriff's Office, just after 2 p.m. Feb. 20, deputies responded to the cement company site on Quaker Hill Road for reports of an injured man. The man, identified by the Sheriff's Office as Steve Fleming, 46, was reportedly repairing monitoring equipment under a conveyer belt when a skid loader backed over him. The man was taken to the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore, where he was in serious condition as of Monday late afternoon, according to the sheriff's office.

A cement plant in Carroll County that is one of the state's top mercury polluters has agreed to slash its emissions of that highly toxic metal and of harmful particle pollution as well, state officials announced yesterday. Lehigh Cement Co.'s Union Bridge plant has voluntarily agreed to reduce its mercury emissions 80 percent by March 2012, according to the Maryland Department of the Environment. That would be a year earlier than the plant would have had to make reductions under new federal pollution regulations proposed earlier this year.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is proposing to require cement plants - which are among the nation's leading air polluters - to reduce emissions of mercury and other contaminants by more than 80 percent by 2013. The regulations are the first seeking to govern what is discharged when limestone, clay and other materials are cooked into the main ingredient in concrete. The proposal would require plants such as the Lehigh Cement Co. kiln in Carroll County to install equipment or make other changes to limit release of toxins.

A Carroll County cement manufacturing plant that has drawn harsh criticism on air quality from its neighbors has cleaner and safer emissions than it has had for decades, company officials said yesterday. Test results on emissions from Lehigh Cement Co. in Union Bridge show a reduction in toxic chemical emissions that are common to cement manufacturing. Toxic emissions dropped from more than 400,000 pounds a year to less than 300 pounds, the results show. Lehigh plant manager Peter Lukas said he was ecstatic about the test results because they confirm that the $300 million technology added to the plant in the past few years is working.

The Lehigh Cement Co. will begin a series of tests next month using dried sewage pellets from two Baltimore treatment plants to replace some of the coal burned by Lehigh's state-of-the-art kiln near Union Bridge. It will be the first such use in North America, said plant manager Peter Lukas. Lehigh's parent corporation, Heidelberger Zement, and other cement makers have been using sludge pellets for about 20 years in Europe, he said, where the cost of other fuels, such as coal, was high.

Martin Marietta Corp.The Bethesda-based defense and aerospace company reported a 25 percent gain in third-quarter earnings, helped, in part, by a non-recurring gain on the sale of Florida real estate including a shopping center, as well as the positive effect of a favorable ruling in a legal dispute related to the 1989 sale of a cement plant.

The Lehigh Cement Co. will begin a series of tests next month using dried sewage pellets from two Baltimore treatment plants to replace some of the coal burned by Lehigh's state-of-the-art kiln near Union Bridge. It will be the first such use in North America, said plant manager Peter Lukas. Lehigh's parent corporation, Heidelberger Zement, and other cement makers have been using sludge pellets for about 20 years in Europe, he said, where the cost of other fuels, such as coal, was high.

HUDSON, N.Y. - There are two sides to Warren Street, the artery that divides Hudson in more ways than north and south. On the seven-block strip that runs from the city square to the Hudson River, storefronts boarded up a decade ago have been transformed into antiques shops and cafes that look more like Greenwich Village in New York City than rural upstate New York. But to the east, where the street turns into Route 9 and enters the town of Greenport, trendy stores give way to rolling hills scarred by quarries and dotted with old barns that need a paint job. It is here that the remnants of two cement plants rise into view.