The worst environmental nightmare on the bay in years. The economic savior of a battered town.

Depending on who’s talking, those are the takes on a plan to install a massive cement mill [by Orcem (part of Ecocem)] and a shipping terminal on the southern edge of Vallejo — and the simmering fight between the two sides is set to boil over in early 2016...

...[Last] fall...a draft environmental report served as the match that lit anger among many Vallejo residents. Hundreds of opponents packed two community meetings in October... The mill would employ 189 people and turn out 2,000 tons of cement a day. Proponents of the multimillion-dollar complex say it would be the heftiest boost in many years for Vallejo, which has been casting about for big-business projects since emerging from bankruptcy in 2011. ...

In November, [San Francisco] Baykeeper and the Sierra Club said the 700-page environmental study is “vague on crucial details about the project and fails to include a full account of the project’s potential environmental and public health effects.” ... 

“People are making statements that are just not true about our operation,” said Orcem California President Stephen Bryan.... “Our project...brings in good union jobs,...and we will generate income for a city that needs money for cops and roads and everything else...”

“It’s just the wrong industry for Vallejo,” said Peter Brooks, who is with Fresh Air Vallejo, the main citizens group opposing the mill and terminal. “This plan causes too much noise pollution, air pollution and water pollution...”