By KERI CHAMPION

Staff Reporter

LAPLACE-The St. John Parish Industry Group reported an overall decrease in combined emissions over last year at the industry group meeting on Wednesday. The reported level of emissions from 2005 was 3,959.574 compared to 4,454.375 in 2004.

Emissions are reported in thousands of pounds per year.

Tomah Reserve Inc. reported a decrease in air emissions for the year even though more product was produced.

Jim Joubert, spokesperson for Tomah said &#8220Although we made more stuff and increased production slightly the products were different which allowed us to reduce emissions.”

Emissions at Tomah decreased by 6.7% over 2004.

Nalco Company increased emissions by 25%. While water and air emissions did decrease, Nalco saw a large increase in off site emissions because of a high demand for products put into drinking water to clarify it. Off-site emissions totaled 231,468 pounds compared to last year’s total of 179,949.

DPC enterprises reported nearly double their air emissions but the scant .544 thousand pounds is not a danger to the community. DPC manufactures sodium hypochlorite and chlorine repackaging. There were no reported emissions for land, water or off-site levels.

Dupont Performance Elastomers is in the process of expanding their Neoprene operations and have been able to decrease emissions. Many of the new additions were designed to decrease pollutants from the facility.

Degussa, a manufacturer of super absorbent polymers that are used primarily in diapers saw emissions output unchanged from 2004 to 2005, staying constant at 5,000 pounds per year.

Bayou Steel also showed a decrease in emissions for 2005. The company recycles scrap metal into steel products and recycled 1.1 billion pounds of scrap in 2005. Overall Bayou Steel reported 2,308.0 thousand pounds mostly from off site emissions.

Marathon Petroleum Company also increased emissions, due to adding the fuel and asphalt terminals to the report. The fuel and asphalt terminals had previously been reported separately. Wally Dows, Environmental quality manager said &#8220Marathon still meets LDEQ requirements with our increased output of emission levels.”

Production increases of PPDA, used to make Kevlar resulted in the largest emission increase over land for Dupont Chemical Pontchatrain site. Land emission was up 10%. Dupont also resumed production of IPDA for 2005 resulting in a slight emission increase.