Des Moines/Mason City

We get loads of emailed news releases here at Radio Iowa.  Many are from national groups which have no relevant Iowa-specific data.  Some national groups, though, rewrite a news release and include Iowa items.  Sometimes the effort is laughable, as in the news release partially pasted below.  (Memo to Earthjustice and EIP:  there is no Des Moines/Mason City metro.  The two cities are just over 120 miles apart.)

July 23, 2008 IA News Advisory …

STUDY TO SHOW CEMENT KILNS POSE MAJOR AND GROWING MERCURY POLLUTION THREAT IN IOWA; EPA FAILING TO PROTECT PUBLIC HEALTH

Cement Plant in Des Moines/Mason City One of 11 to be Highlighted; Kilns Seen As #1 Unregulated Source of Dangerous Pollutant That Acts as Neurotoxin.

Des Moines & Mason City, IA – News Advisory – More than seven years after a federal court ordered the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate toxic mercury pollution from cement kilns, no action has been taken to curb these dangerous and rapidly growing emissions at a major site in Iowa from over 150 plants located across the nation – including one in Des Moines/Mason City.  A major new study to be released on July 23, 2008 by Earthjustice and the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) will document the severely underestimated problem of mercury emissions from cement kilns and the EPA’s failure to control them.

UPDATE:  I sent an email to Ailis Aaron Wolf, a contact for the groups releasing this report, asking about the "one" plant cited in Iowa and asking whether it was in Des Moines or Mason City.  Wolf emailed back the following answer:  "There are actually 2 plants.  Both are in Mason City, IA."