Five years ago today in the late afternoon, I was sitting in my backyard at 32 Warren Street, gazing up at a cobalt sky flecked with wispy white clouds—and enjoying the first true calm I’d felt in almost seven years.
I’d spent that morning with several volunteers at Vince Mulford’s Tin Ballroom, cleaning up after a raucous and joyful bring-your-own champagne celebration. (Parts of this can be seen toward the end of the PBS documentary Two Square Miles.) The occasion for the party was the twin victory that week over St. Lawrence Cement. On Tuesday, New York’s Secretary of State and the City of Hudson Common Council had delivered major blows to SLC’s massive, coal-fired “Greenport Project” which had been opposed by thousands of residents in the Hudson Valley and throughout New England.
Some doubted whether the battle was really over. Was our champagne party was premature? Surely, they worried, this incredibly rich Swiss-owned company would appeal and sue to overturn the decisions, and the agony would be prolonged for years. (Announcing the project in late 1998, the company anticipated having all its 18 permits and approvals in hand within two years, and to have the plant up-and-running by 2002.)
But I was certain it was over: the double-knockout blows from the City and State were too tough to overcome. The company could fight it, but the project was toast. Just to make sure its management ws thoroughly demoralized, and to push them over the edge of the cliff on which they were teetering, I’d spent the week peppering stock analysts, the financial media and company board members with details of the decisions. Trading of SLC stock had to be stopped for a day to prevent a crash. Having spent nearly $60 million to get its way in a town of barely 60,000 residents, they’d failed.
But the adrenaline wasn’t completely drained out of my system yet. So after a good forty minutes of skygazing, my keyboard fingers got itchy. I couldn’t help going inside and checking on my laptop if there had been any more news in the business press.
That’s when I saw it: A wire story announcing that the company had pulled out. It really was finally over. A numbness crawled over my scalp, but I didn’t faint; instead, I told Claire, called Peter Jung, and then knocked out a quick press release, which read in part:
"St. Lawrence Cement has finally made a smart move by recognizing that this out-of-scale and out-of-place project would never meet regulatory approval," said Sam Pratt, executive director of the 4,100-member citizens group Friends of Hudson, which began officially challenging the sprawling project in early 1999.
"This outcome comes as a tremendous relief to not only the Hudson community, but to the tens of thousands of downwind residents in New York and New England who have opposed the plant," Pratt added. "Thanks to a courageous stance taken last week by the Pataki administration, our communities can now put this controversy behind us. We will redouble our efforts to build a greener, more sustainable regional economy that all can participate in, without risking anyone's health or quality of life. Now is a time to bring residents back together, healing the divisions that SLC tried to sow among us, and looking forward to making the Hudson Valley a model for regional revitalization."
Much to my chagrin, I never backed up the countless emails that poured into my computer that week. Two years later, they were all lost in a hard drive crash. But I remember well the feeling of relief, accomplishment and empowerment which swept over the community that week, which I tried to capture in my recent run-down of those who made a difference for the most recent issue of Our Town (PDF).
Today, five years later (thanks to a byzantine and head-spinning series of cop-outs and betrayals) the City of Hudson still has not implemented the firm and “immediate” instructions of the Secretary of State to rezone its Waterfront in a more forward-looking, productive manner—one which would prevent such a wrenching controversy from occurring again. Worse, the City is even contemplating the permanent establishment of a heavy industrial presence by the river, making more positive use of the Waterfront impossible.
Some of the details can be found in Save the South Bay’s press release marking the anniversary today. Once again, citizens are speaking out in droves; as one Alderman put it, “I have yet to hear of anyone who likes the document in its present form.” I have few doubts that the outcome will once again be the right one—but only because people are committed to preserving the full potential of their community, and willing to fight for it.
