SIGN OUR PETITION to convince NYS that we need an independent study of cumulative impacts!
PRESS CONFERENCE: POST PONED UNTIL SEPTEMBER
Today, there is a major waste management industrial complex expanding around the Port of Coeymans owned by Carver Laraway. Since 2006, this complex has tripled in size and the Port is now waiting for a permit to enlarge again. In total, the complex could soon occupy 600-1000 acres of land along the Hudson River, the Binnenkill, and Coeymans Creek.
What is New York State’s response? They treat this region like garbage, hiding behind narrow regulations to turn a blind eye to both current and future risks. Just when they should be protecting the health of our residents and environment, our State government is ready to sacrifice Coeymans and the Hudson River on a mountain of waste.
Before matters get worse, the Clean Air Coalition is calling for an independent review of the cumulative impact of this industrial development and its future waste management plans. We are asking Governor Hochul to insist that the DEC, the Army Corps, and the Department of State stop any permit approvals until this review has been done and independently verified.
There is a better future for the Hudson River and its Valley. This week, Congressman Paul Tonko, Scenic Hudson and Riverkeeper will speak out in support of the proposed New York-New Jersey Watershed Protection Act. This act would bring millions of dollars over five years to restore the Hudson River watershed. It will support the NY Parks Department’s development of the new Hudson Eagles Recreation Area, a novel 55-mile river park in the Hudson River from Kingston to Albany.
So why, with this future in our hands, is NY State encouraging a major waste processing complex on the Hudson at Coeymans? Why should this business be allowed to expand in our new river park? The Hudson and its watershed are still recovering from earlier industrial damage. They should not be exposed to yet more toxic activity.
The Coeymans waste management complex has been growing for almost twenty years, one permitted step at a time. Its expansion needs to stop. In 2008, the Port of Coeymans was handling 80,000 tons of scrap metal, bauxite, and salt. Local people immediately began to hear the crash of loading metals at all hours of day and night. In 2009, the Port got a DEC permit to take in construction and demolition debris, including restricted fill. Residents watched as that fill was used to expand the buildable area of the Coeymans Industrial Park created in 2013 over local opposition. A few weeks after the TCI facility in Colombia County exploded in 2012, the company was given a new home at the Port of Coeymans. That TCI explosion released an unknown amount of chemicals and a warning
to residents to shelter in place, yet TCI began building a new facility in the Coeymans Industrial Park in 2014, upwind of the local primary school. In December 2017, the State of Connecticut was planning to ship one-third of its municipal waste to Coeymans for use as fuel at the Ravena LafargeHolcim Cement Plant on 9W. In 2018, Carver Laraway signed a contract with NY DEC to pick up old tires from around New York State, hoping to burn them in the Lafarge kiln. These are all pointers to the waste management industry these businesses want to build.
Although these incineration plans were temporarily stopped, LafargeHolcim is still planning to use waste as fuel, regardless of the emissions that could produce. TCI, meanwhile, has submitted a proposal to treble its capacity to process PCB-laden mineral oil in order to produce fuel. Nearby, CD Man, an ally of the Port of Coeymans, is asking for a permit to turn 70 acres along Route 144 into a major transfer station for C&D. There are even proposals to run a rail spur into this transfer station and the Coeymans Industrial Park. Is this wise? NY State should be pursuing a zero-waste policy, not encouraging an industrial complex like this one.
Since the 1990s, local laws have repeatedly stopped Coeymans from becoming a dumping ground. That changed in 2019 when George McHugh, legal counsel to the Port of Coeymans, was elected Coeymans Town Supervisor (salary $35,000). The following year, backed by a Town Board with numerous family and business links to the Port of Coeymans and its owner, Carver Laraway, they revised all the Town’s protective laws on solid waste, clean air, and industrial zoning. Each revision has encouraged the expansion of the riverfront waste management business.
Is this right? Do we want to see more garbage, more restricted fill, more tires and demolition debris right inside the new Hudson Eagles Recreation Area? Do we want waste of all kinds and toxicities to be processed at the Port of Coeymans, the Coeymans Industrial Park, the LafargeHolcim cement plant, and other sites in Coeymans?
No. This is not right and not wanted. That is why the Clean Air Coalition of Greater Ravena-Coeymans is asking Governor Hochul, the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and New York’s Department of State to turn down all current applications to expand and not review any future permit applications until a comprehensive environmental review of the Port of Coeymans Complex and its waste management businesses have been completed and independently verified.
We can see the outlines of a better, cleaner future for the Hudson River and its residents. That future needs to be protected, not trashed.
