To our disappointment, Governor Hochul signed LECCLA into law on Friday, December 24, 2021
THANK YOU TO 95 ORGANIZATIONS THAT SIGNED ONTO THIS LETTER URGING NYS GOVERNOR HOCHUL TO VETO ASSEMBLY BILL A2591. AS OF 11/23/21, OVER 150 CALLS WERE MADE!
LECCLA is short for Low Embodied Carbon Concrete Leadership Act
WHY HAVE WE ASKED NEW YORK’S GOVERNOR TO VETO LECCLA, A2591A?
The Clean Air Coalition was formed after learning in late 2017 of plans to use large volumes of municipal waste from Connecticut at the LafargeHolcim cement plant in Ravena, a village in the town of Coeymans, NY. In 2018 and 2019, we worked with the local town board of Coeymans to pass the first Clean Air Act which prohibited the use of solid waste as fuel in any industrial activity in the town. We then worked to pass a similar law in Albany County, which can be found here. In 2020, a new Coeymans Town Board revised and effectively gutted the 2019 Coeymans Clean Air Law. This revised ‘clean air’ law now allows for industrial burning of waste and, as local law, it over-rides the Albany County Law. Since then, our coalition has continued to work for clean air emissions from industries located in Coeymans and/or New York State.
In 2021, the cement industry started promoting the draft LECCLA law in New York State to create State-funded incentives for public projects to use low-carbon concrete. Their original draft bill included reference to using “alternative fuels” instead of coal. We feared that wording would encourage the use of solid waste in cement kilns, so we opposed that wording. Rather than change the wording, the bill was completely rewritten to authorize the New York State Office of General Services (OGS) to work with an advisory panel of industry insiders to define the parameters of low-embodied carbon concrete and any incentives to be offered. The revised LECCLA bill was passed but has not been signed by the Governor as of early October 2021. The Coalition has asked the Governor to veto the bill because the advisors are all industry insiders, there is no definition of low-carbon concrete, and there is no mention of the public health implications of using waste as fuel or in concrete aggregate.
NY OFFICE OF GENERAL SERVICES (OGS)
Coalition comments on OGS draft procurement specifications for lower carbon concrete
August 27, 2021
In early August 2021, the Coalition had a notice from the Department of State as the Office of General Services had called for public comment on procurement standards for lower carbon concrete used in State projects, effectively implementing the LECCLA law before it is signed. These are the main points submitted by the Coalition on August 28, 2021.
In its call for public comments, the New York State Office of General Services noted that over 90% of the CO2 embodied in concrete comes from the CO2 produced in cement kilns. Much of that is produced during the chemical conversion of limestone to what is called ‘clinker’ to create cement, but fuel, especially coal, is also a major factor. The industry is arguing that when waste is substituted for coal, it lowers the CO2 emissions compared to burning only coal. However, the research on low CO2 emissions from waste burning is scant and unconvincing. More critically, there is reputable research that shows burning waste produces emissions containing high volumes of toxins harmful to the environment and human health. In 2018, continuous monitoring of emissions from a state-of-the-art waste incineration plant in the Netherlands found high levels of dioxins were coming out of the stacks. (See here.) Compared to a waste incinerator, a cement plant produces a much higher volume of emissions, so the toxic burden is also much higher.
The proposed OGS standards for low-carbon concrete make no mention of what fuels can be used to make cement. This should be changed. While the goal of lowering CO2 from cement production is a worthy one, it should not be achieved by increasing the overall toxicity of emissions.
This is our first point: the OGS procurement standards must include a ban on using any waste materials as fuel to make cement.
Use of fly ash and slag should be prohibited
Given the high proportion of embodied CO2 coming from cement, it makes sense to use less cement in concrete. The proposed OGS standards call it “supplementary cementitious materials”. These materials include fly ash, slag, or both. Fly ash is the waste from burning coal, while slag is produced during the production of steel. Both are the waste from processes that are inherently high emitters of CO2. It is deceptive to call this a ‘low carbon’ material for that reason.
In addition, fly ash itself is very toxic. When mixed with cement, it creates a dust that is harmful to any worker close to that mixture. The use of fly ash as supplementary cementitious material should be prohibited, first because it assumes the continued use of coal which needs to be discontinued, and second because of the harmful fly ash dust released into the environment.
Slag is problematic for a different reason because it is often imported from steel producers in places as far away as China. The CO2 emitted during the transport of slag in order to include it in the production of concrete should be included in any calculation of the embodied CO2 in concrete used in procurement.
Ground glass pozzolans are acceptable, especially if the glass is sourced locally from recycling plants, and must, of course, meet the necessary structural requirements.
This is our second point: fly ash and slag are not suitable supplementary cementitious materials for reducing the proportion of cement in concrete; ground glass pozzolan is suitable.
Require a clear, comparable, statement of embodied CO2 & supplementary cementitious material used in all concrete mixes
The past few months have seen a build-up of pressure from the cement industry to impose their own standard on how much CO2 is acceptable in concrete. This is industry writing the rules to suit them, rather than responding to what the planet needs or their customers might want. In your procurement specifications, you should decide what is the acceptable level of CO2 in concrete, expressed in the same terms used in table 1 of the OGS’s draft specifications: “Estimated lb.CO2 per unit lb. material”. If it is too hard to set that standard, then every unit (bag, ton, etc.) of concrete sold should declare how much CO2 was emitted during its production, expressed in a standard, comparable fashion as “Estimated lb.CO2 per unit lb. material”. Each unit of concrete sold should also declare the proportion of fly ash and slag included in the mix so that users are warned of the toxic nature of the cementitious material and only use it where it can be locked up permanently without releasing any toxic dust.
This is our third point: every unit of concrete sold must have a clear, comparable, statement of the CO2 emitted during its production and the amounts of dangerous supplementary cementitious material used in the mix.
updated on website October 24, 2021