Author: Clean Air Coalition

In early May, the state Department of Environmental Conservation modified the air permit of the LafargeHolcim cement plant in Coeymans (southern Albany County) to prevent it from burning tires. (There are currently only two cement plants operating in New York State, the one in Coeymans and Lehigh Hanson in Glens Falls. Both have demonstrated their interest in burning waste products a strong interest in burning waste products as they are much cheaper than fossil fuels.)

Reportedly, the Lafarge cement plant planned to burn one million tires annually. A local businessman has been collecting tires for that purpose and was actively enlarging the Port of Coeymans on the Hudson River in order to facilitate tire collection.

DEC justified its very welcome decision on the grounds that LafargeHolcim lacks the equipment and infrastructure to burn tires safely. Burning tires is extremely polluting and the cement plant is located across the street from the local public middle school and high school.

Concerned Coeymans residents have waged a valiant struggle to prevent the cement kiln from burning tires. The commitment and vigilance of these residents has been absolutely critical in preventing Lafarge from burning tires. 

But tire burning was not the only threat posed by LafargeHolcim. Four and a half years ago around Christmas, environmentalists discovered that Lafarge was in discussion with the state of Connecticut about importing that state’s garbage to burn in its cement kiln. Environmental activists sounded the alarm and Lafarge issued a public denial that it planned to burn waste. However evidence later emerged that the company had lied and was looking into it.

In 2019, the Coeymans Town Board responded to the local outcry against the cement plant’s plan to burn tires, by passing a local clean air law prohibiting the burning of waste. However, later that year, a Lafarge-supported slate of candidates was elected to the town board and supervisor position.

Realizing that the town’s clean air law was not secure, the concerned citizens of Coeymans led a couple campaigns to get the Albany County legislature to pass a county-wide clean air law designed to prevent industrial facilities from burning waste. The County enacted such a law the second time around. However, when the new majority on the Coeymans town board took office in 2020, they took advantage of a loophouse that exempted towns that had their own local clean air laws from the Albany County law. Even though the new administration in Coeymans weakened the local law in order to allow the cement plant to burn waste, such as tires, the County clean air law no longer covered the Coeymans facility.

Let Congressman Tonko know that he must act faster for us and for the planet. Join us Tuesdays at noon starting June 1st in front of the Congressman's office, 19 Dove St., Albany.
Please spread the word.  See the flyer below and the Facebook Event link.
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The Congressman who holds the most sway on climate change is our representative, Paul Tonko.  He is the Chair of the House Environment and Climate Change Committee.  We are his constituents; he needs our votes.

The most pressing problem for the planet, our children, and the well-being of billions of people is climate change.  We cannot and should not waste this opportunity of influence.
This past Earth Day, 50 of us gathered outside Congressman Tonko’s office to demand climate action starting with NO NEW FOSSIL FUEL INFRASTRUCTURE!  Tonko’s goal of net neutral GHG emissions by 2050 is way too late to prevent runaway climate change.

No single rally will move Mr. Tonko but a series of them may work.  We need to push, push and push some more to make our voices heard.

Therefore PAUSE (People of Albany United for Safe Energy) and Food and Water Watch are organizing a summer series of Tuesday lunch rallies in front of the Congressman’s office at 19 Dove St., in Albany.  Attached is the flyer with details.  (Be sure to click on the clock.)  

Our blast-off rally is on Tuesday, June 1st at noon.

It would be helpful if you could let us know of your interest in attending any of the Tuesday rallies but especially the one on June 1st:  RSVP to Sandy Steubing, PAUSE facilitator, at [email protected].

In the meantime, please call, email, or tweet the Congressman with the following message:
“The Clean Futures Act is too little, too late.  We need to implement bills and benchmarks this decade to keep under the 2.7°F desired limit of the Paris Climate Agreement.”

• Call: 518-465-0700,
• tweet: @RepPaulTonko
• email: [email protected]

Marching and protesting are effective ways to make the local news but if you truly want change, you VOTE! And, when I say ‘vote’ I mean, going to the New York State Senate website and casting a vote that all New York State Senators will see. This is how you do it:

1. Go to this URL: https://www.nysenate.gov/

2. Create account

3. An email will be sent to you that your account setup was a success. To activate your account you have to click on the URL that was sent to the email address you provided (or paste into your browser) to validate your address and set up a password. Once that’s done, you’ll be ready to participate in the legislative process!

4. Click on “Bills” (under Inbox and Issues) and then click on the gold-colored words “Search all Senate legislation”

5.

6.

Lastly, you can leave comments too! If you’re not sure how to put into words your frustration with these two bills, take a cue from the CAC. Feel free to copy and paste all or part of anything we wrote here:

Public Comment re: Low Embodied Carbon Concrete Leadership Act

Senate Bill S542 and Assembly Bill A2591

As written, this bill will do more harm to the environment than good.  It does not exclude the burning of waste by cement plants as a “low carbon fuel” which when burned produces toxins and chemicals known to harm people and the soil.  As is, the bill also encourages the use of toxic and polluting materials such as fly ash and blast furnace slag to be incorporated into concrete as supplementary cementitious materials.  Only non-toxic recycled ground glass pozzolan should be encouraged.  

Furthermore, much of the current carbon capture and sequestration technology perpetuates the burning of fossil fuels and does not live up to its promise of reducing carbon from smokestacks and the atmosphere.  Studies that take into account “upstream” greenhouse gas emissions from extraction and transportation found that many carbon capture technologies reduce only a small fraction of carbon emissions, usually increase air pollution, and require significant taxpayer-funded subsidies. 

This concrete procurement discount is sponsored by the taxpayers and those who breathe the air and farm the soil in NY State.  It needs to protect us!   I, therefore, urge you to consider the following amendments to the bill:

1. Remove any mention of “low carbon fuel” since this term is being used by the cement industry to include all types of waste.  Please amend §2 Section 165, proposed subdivision 9, (vii) (B) to read: (B) select fuel use at the level of the concrete and/or cement plant which for the purpose of this law is strictly limited to plants that are electrified or burn gas and/or coal. This fuel selection excludes the burning of any waste material whatsoever such as tire-derived fuel and ash.

2. Reword (vii)(C) as follows: (C) local production and use of locally sourced material resulting in reduced emissions from transportation;

3. Reword (vii)(D) as follows: (D) the reduction of clinker content in the cement component of concrete, or the substitution of clinker content with lower carbon alternative non-toxic materials, i.e. supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs), such as recycled ground-glass pozzolan, but excluding toxic or harmful by-products such as ground granulated blast furnace slag and fly ash;

4. Delete definition (ix) for Carbon capture, utilization and/or storage, and reword (xii) as follows: “Low embodied carbon concrete breakthrough” shall mean any qualified technology, method, or product, including but not limited to one that incorporates qualified carbon capture utilization and storage, that once fully commercialized and implemented has the potential to significantly reduce the GWP of concrete.  However, for the purpose of this law such breakthrough shall exclude the combustion of any waste material whatsoever.

Did you know that Lafarge / Holcim and their various affiliates have paid $279 million in penalties since 2020? And that doesn’t even count the hundreds of millions of fines that Holcim has paid in Europe for price-fixing.

Apparently, they have calculated that it’s more economical for them to pay penalties, as opposed to cleaning up their act.

Learn more at at the violation tracker website.

Dear Friends and Neighbors,

Like all of us, I am heartsick over the recent news that the LaFargeHolcim plant in Ravena violated regulations nearly 300 times over the last six years. Most of the violations involved toxic discharges into the Hudson River, Hannacroix Creek, and Coeymans Creek. This is an absolute gut punch to those of us who live, work, and play in the area, and who want our community to thrive. To those of us who love RCS.

I am not here to cast aspersions on LaFarge or any other industrial operation in RCS land. The industry is an important part of our economy and our history, and I know there are plenty of good people who work at these places who genuinely love our community. 

But let’s be nothing less than crystal clear: any organization that would abuse their host community with such reckless indifference to their health, safety, and livability can NOT be said to love that community, and it needs to be held to account. Yes, they reached a settlement with the state and federal governments, and some of those funds will come to town to help repair the damage done, but I don’t find the gesture nearly sufficient if this company wants us to believe they are responsible partners.

LaFargeHolcim is not a family-owned business, passed down through the generations to hardworking RCS folks who earned our trust, nor is it a scrappy start-up by a recent transplant committed to becoming a good neighbor. It is a massive multinational corporation, based in Europe, with plants all over the globe. It has teams of attorneys looking to maximize profits without the well-being of their host communities anywhere near the top of their priorities. It has scores of PR people at the ready to release artful statements insisting on their commitment to the environment and public health, despite the fact of serial violations. 

As we speak, our state government is considering passing legislation (Senate Bill S00542 and Assembly Bill A02591) that would encourage LaFargeHolcim to burn “low carbon fuels” in their Ravena kiln. That sounds lovely and green, but the definition of “low carbon fuels” currently permits the burning of post-consumer and industrial waste, including tires. This legislation was almost certainly written with the strong influence of the cement industry, which would reduce their costs by accepting such waste as fuel. Politicians tend to like it because it helps eliminate a waste disposal headache and because they can spin it as “green”. 

The problem is that such incineration practices can simply not be deemed safe, considering they release all sorts of toxic chemicals and compounds, without much more serious and unbiased study. And can we really trust LaFargeHolcim, a corporation that has demonstrated its near-total disregard for our well-being through the violations recently reported (and in many others over the years), to do everything they can to REALLY ensure our well-being?

Did I mention that our middle school and high school kids spend seven years of their young lives breathing the air in the shadow of LaFarge’s kiln?

I am enormously concerned about this entire situation. Frankly, I feel our wonderful RCS land is being used, and that the goodwill of our neighbors is being abused. I, for one, have just about had it. We LIVE here, guys. Our KIDS live here, fishing in the river and splashing in the creeks. We love it here. WE LOVE RCS. And when you love something, sometimes you have to stand up for it.

Write your state assembly members and senators, county legislators, and town council people, and tell them that you are concerned about the pollution in your own backyard and across the street from where your kids learn and grow. Tell them to get serious about monitoring and penalizing polluters, so that they are deterred from committing the same violations time and time again. Tell them to not allow serial polluters to burn tires and other waste in such dangerous proximity to school kids. Tell them it’s time to stand up for their constituents or we will find leaders who will.

Yours,

Ted Smith