The Downwinders at Risk, announced Ash Grove Cement Company filed a permit amendment with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality seeking to close two of its three cement kilns in Midlothian. It would convert the third to a less-polluting production method. Cement kiln operators, including Ash Grove, face a 2013 deadline to meet new emission standards from the federal Environmental Protection Agency. Midlothian has 10 cement kilns, though several are idle. According to Downwinders, which has worked for two decades to reduce pollution from cement kilns, Ash Grove will cease using a wet process in favor of a newer dry method that uses much less water and fuel. When it converts the remaining kiln to the dry process, it will also greatly expand it, so that the facility's total capacity will only drop about 20%, to 949,000 tons a year.