Concerned Healthcare Professionals of the Lower Cape Fear Region

Informed leadership for a healthy community.
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Concerned Healthcare Professionals of the Lower Cape Fear Region

 

As healthcare professionals, we are ethically obliged to take a stand to protect the health and environment of our community.  We are not radical; we are not anti-business (many of us are business people in the community); we are not anti-growth; we are scientifically trained and knowledgeable.  We oppose the unnecessary health risks posed by this proposed plant; and we specifically oppose where it is sited, proximate to a population center and near critical aquatic and terrestrial habitat.  We oppose this industry because of the health risk it poses to contaminate our food sources, our air, and our drinking water.

 

 We stand united, as healthcare professionals and scientists, in our concern and opposition to the proposed Titan America (Carolinas Cement) plant in southeastern NC.  We represent and care for the children, the elderly, the sick, who are at particular risk from the pollution from this industry.

 

This web site was established to provide citizens with credible healthcare information about potential adverse effects of pollution from the proposed Titan America (Carolinas) Cement Plant in the lower Cape Fear region.  As healthcare professionals, we strongly oppose exposing our citizens to this potential harm. 

 

As local health professionals and concerned citizens in the Lower Cape Fear Region, including Wilmington and surrounding environs in New Hanover, Pender and Brunswick counties, we established this web site to educate citizens and elected officials of the potential health risks of bringing the highly polluting cement industry into our community.  There is simply not enough data to support Titan's claim that the project will not endanger our health and environment.  We do not want our citizenry to become a clinical trial for the effects of pollutant exposure.
 
It's not too late to stop this threat and seek healthy, positive community partners and cleaner industries to help our local economy.  No future clean businesses will want to move into the region if we become a geographic "hotspot" for birth defects, cancer or respiratory illness.
 
We invite you to join the growing constituency of health professionals who are bringing a critical voice concerning the health of our community to the forefront of policy decision-making. 
 Do not accept the propaganda spread by Titan and their moneyed interests that opponents of the Titan - Carolinas Cement Plant are uninformed or extremist.

 

Titan Cement and financial allies are waging a propaganda war to discredit opposition to their plans to build a highly polluting cement plant in our community (subsidized by our tax dollars).

 

We believe that our elected officials have been negligent (or ignorant) concerning the risks associated with a major polluting industry such as cement manufacturing, and have sold our community's health short by enticing this company to set up operations in our community.  We hope we can help rally strong opposition to this plant, including the mining operations, the production kiln and the supporting distribution system, for the sake of the health and well being of the citizens of our region.

 

 Is this the type of industry you want in our community? 
 
What we hear from the cement industry PR spokespeople may not include

what they discuss in their own trade journal...
 
From Cement Americas - the Industry Publication for the Cement Industry.
 
"Increased cement production can result in higher levels of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and persistent bio-accumulative toxic chemicals (PBTs), the undesirable byproducts of the combustion process. Regardless of industry's technical or production-related improvements in lowering POP and PBT emissions, regulatory authorities worldwide are attempting to virtually eliminate the generation of POPs and PBTs due to their affinity to accumulate in fat and move up the food chain.
 

According to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), POPs are recognized as a special problem because they "persist in the environment, accumulate in the fatty tissues of most living organisms, and are alleged to be toxic to humans and wildlife, even at extremely low levels. POPs are prone to long-range transboundary atmospheric transport and deposition that cause significant adverse human health or environmental effects near to and distant from their sources.

 

The PBTs of interest to the cement industry include certain heavy metals (i.e., mercury and lead) and other chemicals that are formed during the combustion process."