Is your home or property worth more than the year you bought it? Odds are it’s not. Why is that? Could it have something to do with the fact that as the Port of Coeymans grows to accommodate more heavy industry activity that fewer and fewer people care to live here? We at the CAC think so.
The following comments were submitted to the Albany County Planning Board in January 2021 on behalf of Barbara Heinzen and Christine Primomo. These are the reasons why the CAC works so hard to protect the Town of Coeymans from industrial expansion. Please feel free to echo these sentiments when you submit your comments at the public meeting.
To members of the Albany County Planning Board:
Christine Primomo and I would like to submit the following comments for the Albany County Planning Board concerning the Town of Coeymans Draft Comprehensive Plan. While Christine Primomo is a resident of Coeymans, I live in New Baltimore, Greene County, but my property is in both Albany and Greene Counties on the west bank of the Hudson River at the mouth of the Hannacroix Creek. Whatever happens in Coeymans affects me directly. We believe that before this Comprehensive Plan can be adopted, the Town of Coeymans must conduct fuller consultation with residents and commission a Generic Environmental Impact Study for the following reasons:
Waste Processing and Industrial Development in Coeymans
Currently, heavy industrial activity occupies 11% of the land in Coeymans, however, most of that takes place between Route 9W and the Hudson River, occupying as much as 30-50% of an area that is very valuable in agricultural, environmental, and historical terms. This industrial activity has grown substantially since the 2006 Coeymans Comprehensive Plan was approved. According to people involved in the 2006 Plan, the ambition was to LIMIT further heavy industry, not expand it. However, exactly the opposite has occurred with the rapid growth of the Port of Coeymans and the Coeymans Industrial Park. It is notable that during this same period, both the population and value of housing in Coeymans have declined, despite this increase in economic activity.
The Port of Coeymans and Coeymans Industrial Park are responsible for all the expansion of heavy industry since 2006 and this expansion looks set to continue, moving north along Route 144 and the Hudson River. On 23 July 2020, the Coeymans Solid Waste Law and Zoning Law definitions were amended to allow for the creation of a waste processing transfer station along route 144, immediately west of the Port of Coeymans and north of the Coeymans Industrial Park. These amendments will allow a private company to import and handle solid waste of many different kinds from anywhere, in any quantity. Such waste will be able to come into the town by road, rail or river, and there are plans (not mentioned in the draft Comp Plan) to build a rail link to allow that. On 23 November 2020, the Coeymans Town Board revised the Coeymans Clean Air Law, which had limited the incineration of waste in Coeymans. The revised Clean Air Law not only permits the incineration of solid waste in any quantity it has rendered the Albany County Clean Air Law, signed in September 2020, ineffective. Taken together, the revisions to the Clean Air Law and the Solid Waste and Zoning laws, point to a clear intention to turn the riverfront area in Coeymans, from the Lafarge cement plant on 9W to the Hudson River, into a major waste management and incineration center that can serve a very large region of the Northeast.
To date, there has been no comprehensive study of the cumulative impact of the expansion of the Port of Coeymans and its allied businesses in the Coeymans Industrial Park. Nor has there been any debate about the wisdom of creating a major waste management facility on the Hudson River directly opposite the Schodack State Park, in a narrow stretch of the Hudson River, both of which are home to endangered species, the bald eagle and sturgeon. To the best of my knowledge, there is no mention in the current draft Coeymans Comprehensive Plan of the intention to expand waste management in the Town of Coeymans. Nor has there been any substantial public debate about these plans with residents of the Town or any discussion of the wisdom of expanding waste management and incineration activity in Coeymans.
Impact on neighboring towns
The impact of these waste management plans is potentially very large. The Albany Clean Air Law was passed with a large majority, including members from both political parties. Legislators and their constituents were especially concerned about the impact of burning waste on the toxicity of air emissions and the health of residents in Albany County. Other residents in neighboring counties downwind of Coeymans also supported the original Coeymans Clean Air Law and the Albany County Clean Air Law. Given this major potential impact, why is this development not even mentioned in the Coeymans Comprehensive Plan?
Cumulative impact study needed
These industrial businesses have been approved one by one, but the time has come to review the cumulative impact of the expansion of heavy industry seen at the Port of Coeymans and Coeymans Industrial Park. This review also needs to include the impact of expanding existing waste management businesses in Coeymans and allowing the incineration of waste at the Lafarge cement plant or any other industrial facility in the town. A comprehensive plan is a perfect time to conduct such a study, but to the best of my knowledge, there has not even been a SEQR review of the draft Comprehensive Plan.
Serious debate needed on increasing waste management and incineration in Coeymans
The authors of the draft comprehensive plan have made a good start. However, thanks to COVID restrictions they have largely consulted members of the Town Board. They held four workshops with the Town Board where no members of the public were admitted. In their survey, the authors of the Comprehensive Plan note that most people wanted to limit industrial expansion, not increase it. However, in the draft plan’s conclusions concerning economic development, their first recommendation (ED1) is to encourage economic development in industrial areas. By their own data, this does not represent the wishes of the residents of Coeymans or the interests of the residents of Albany County who want to limit air pollution from heavy industry and waste incineration in Albany County.
Thank you very much for considering these points.
Yours sincerely,
Barbara Heinzen, New Baltimore, New York
Christine Primomo, Ravena, New York 12143
