The state has allowed the Lafarge cement plant to continue its current level of mercury emissions until 2013, when a federal standard will cut the rate nearly in half. The air permit for the plant, renewed Monday by the state Department of Environmental Conservation, caps the annual amount of mercury it releases into the air at 176 pounds to meet a new state law. Lafarge, the state's second-largest source of airborne mercury pollution, must cut its yearly mercury emissions nearly in half by 2013. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced last month that the annual nationwide limit will be set at about 95 pounds, a change that will force more than 100 cement plants to spend an estimated $1 billion to comply. Read the entire story in the Albany Times-Union.