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'The MOU worked for a while, and then suddenly we started noticing all these dust storms again," Cargill says. <br />Gabi Hoefler, an inspector with the Boulder County Health Department, acknowledges that some residents have been <br />frustrated with both the county and with Cemex since the MOU was signed and feel Cemex has been unresponsive to <br />their concerns or failed to abide by the MOU. <br />"During the task force [Cemex was] very responsive;' she says. "They sat down with the citizens and worked through <br />numerous plans and implemented a number of new projects. And after that I don't know necessarily that [the MOU] fell <br />apart as-I'm not really sure how to say it-maybe [Cemex did] not stay on top of it as much as they needed to." <br />In the early spring of 2002-about six months after the MOU was signed-the sprinkler Cemex had agreed to install and <br />maintain froze. A state official who inspected the plant on Oct. 1, 2002, sent a letter to Cemex stating that the sprinkler <br />system had been out of operation "for an extended period of time" and recommending that the company keep spare parts <br />on hand to ensure speedier repairs. <br />Activists see Cemex's failure to keep the sprinkler system operational as proof the company didn't take the MOU <br />seriously. For them, it strains the limits of credibility that amulti-billion-dollar company couldn't do a better job of making <br />certain the system received timely repairs. <br />Hoefler says it's more likely a problem of not thinking far enough ahead, as opposed to an issue of malfeasance. <br />Regardless of the cause, residents were again disheartened. Their growing sense of frustration was heightened by the <br />discovery that the company had burned some i38 million gallons of solvents and waste oil in its kiln between 1975 and <br />1991 without the proper permit, as well as the company's August 2002 announcement that it wanted to burn tires as a fuel <br />source in its kiln-something it had not done since 1993.. (See sidebar.) <br />On Sept. 9, 2002, Cargill made a presentation to the Boulder County Board of Health, in which he alleged that Cemex had <br />failed to comply with the MOU as evidenced by the frequent dust clouds. Board member Jeannette Hillary reportedly <br />asked if it was time to hold Cemex's "toes to the fire," and residents attending the meeting indicated they felt it was. <br />On Sept. 30, 2D02, Hoefler and Pam Milmoe made an unannounced inspection at Cemex on behalf of the county. They <br />found excess dust piled on top of the plant's A-Frame building, as well as numerous piles of clinker around it; excessive <br />fugitive dust emissions at the Clinker Pit due to improper handling of material by a worker; dust on the haul road behind <br />the A-Frame; piles of dust under a conveyor belt at the south end of the plant, a condition they noted had been reported in <br />previous inspections; and materials stockpiles which could be a source of fugitive dust and which inspectors had <br />previously suggested should be watered or misted to keep down fugitive dust. The county demanded a written response <br />from Cemex demonstrating how the problems would be corrected. <br />Their findings were quickly passed onto the state, which generated a letter of its own to Cemex on Oct. 15, 2002. In that <br />letter, the state demanded Cemex yet again revise its Fugitive Dust Control Plan. <br />4 <br />