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118 entries categorized "Towns | Ghent"

July 25, 2013

County committee blasts TCI—then recs new regs to avert future disasters

But has the Board of Supervisors already buried its own advisors’ recommendations?

PHOTO: Lance Wheeler

At least one positive change might come of the disaster last summer at TCI of NY, whose PCB-handling facility burned to the ground almost one year ago... That is, if the Columbia County Board of Supervisors heeds the advice of its Environmental Management Council (EMC), rather than suppressing its recommendations.

Finding that TCI’s operators “showed disregard for the safety of plant workers, the community, and the environment,” the EMC issued a stiff memorandum to the Supervisors back on June 24th. Drawing lessons from the TCI incident, the memo recommends “strategies that Columbia County and municipalities could adopt to avert the recurrence of such an event,” including tough new rules for the management of hazardous waste in the entire County.

However, over a month later, the Board of Supervisors still has not made the recommendations public. This site now has obtained a copy of the letter, authored by chair Ed Simonsen, and apparently recommeneded unanimously by EMC members, and it can be downloaded as a PDF via this link.

Noting the lack of disclosure, reporting, and oversight of TCI’s operations leading up to the company’s inferno, the EMC concluded that “numerous Ghent residents, and residents from surrounding communities who volunteer to fight fires, were exposed to danger due to negligence.”

Furthermore, the Committee found that even as TCI conducted at least one unpermitted activity involving PCBs, “no effective oversight was provided by any level of government.” Noting also that TCI lacked “appropriate fire suppression... chemical or smoke detection systems,” the committee then proceeds to offer 10 common-sense recommendations, which are reproduced below in full:

Any proposed project which would produce or handle toxic or potentially toxic substances should be subjected to a rigorous SEQRA process. Detailed plans showing all processes and operations along with their approved methodologies should be reviewed by an independent environmental consulting firm and the results of the analysis reported to the reviewing board. Plans should also include the identification of safe handling and storage practices of all appurtenant chemicals used at the site. Towns abutting this use should be designated as interested parties. Regardless of location there should be a referral to the County Departments of Health, Safety, and the County Planning Board.

Conditions of approval should include provisions for unannounced inspection of the facility by a qualified and or licensed chemical engineer. Assuming a local oversight plan, persons providing this service should be required to have the requisite education, license or experience to adequately assess those substances and procedures being used/carried out at the site. These should be augmented by NYSDEC and USEPA inspections.

The cost of each inspection would be the responsibility of the plant operators in perpetuity. An escrow account funded by the business operator/owner to fund inspections should be created.

Costs borne by local fire and rescue squads/ companies to equip themselves and train to address accidents at the site should be paid for by applicant/plant operator.

Comprehensive, detailed records should be retained by the municipality and contain all board reviews and conditions of approval or rejection.

If a project is approved by the community’s designated reviewing board, monthly reports should be required to be made by the owner/plant operator to the town board or its designee and should be available to the for the public to read, These reports would itemize and describe in detail and quantify all materials entering and leaving the plant. This would include all materials in trailers or other mobile devices. Copies would be forwarded to the local Fire Company and Town Board. The project operators shall also maintain off site material records which are held by an independent party.

Consideration should follow a risk analysis to determine benefits and potential detriments of a proposal which deals with hazardous substances. Communities may wish to exclude or deem incompatible some uses. Short of prohibiting a given use, the community should establish a “Zone of Vulnerability” which delineates minimum separation distances to schools, nursing homes, hospitals, or heavily populated areas.

The plant operators/owners shall not be permitted to sub-lease or sub-contract any portion or use of the site to any other entity without review and approval granting a special use permit.

Proper permits should be obtained and maintained with NYSDEC, USEPA, and OSHA.

A chain of custody for all chemicals and toxic substances entering and leaving the premises should be available to authorities upon request.

Despite the apparent urgency and importance of these ten recommendations, the Board of Supervisors did not release the memo publicly, prompting Simonsen to re-submit it this Tuesday, this time to the County’s Government Committee. According to one EMC member, Stuyvesant Supervisor Ron Knott “pretty much questioned most of our observations and suggestions. He further suggested that the memo be sent to the County Attorney's office to determine if the contents of the memo were legal.”

According to its mission statement, the EMC was created by the Board of Supervisors in 1974 in compliance with State Environmental Conservation Law Article 47, a/k/a the Local Environmental Protection Act. Its stated purpose is “to advise local and state government, and where resources within the county are influenced, the federal government, on present and proposed methods of using, protecting, and conserving the environment for the benefit of all the people.”

Methods of pursuing that mission include “research, recommendations, reports, plans, inventories, and public information and education,” thus placing the current memorandum well within its apparent powers and goals.

According to the memo, the EMC based its review upon “available reports,” in particular the February 2013 findings of the New York State Office of Fire Prevention and Control.

in Counties | Columbia, Environment, Open Government, Planning & Land Use, Towns | Ghent | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 15, 2013

Indifferent editorial confuses good and bad

The Columbia Paper editorialized last week that TCI of NY has “a good environmental track record.” Was the writer actually referring to the same company whose plant burned to the ground last summer?

Over the past 30 years, all three of TCI’s PCB-handling facilities in the region have suffered fires, explosions or both:

TCI left Newburgh in 1985 after a major blaze caused the local fire chief to condemn the building and cite the company for code violations. That shut-down was preceded by many written complaints from neighbors about smoke and emissions.
Moving briefly to the Industrial Tract in Greenport, TCI’s 1987 transformer explosion “rocked an area within a half-mile.”
And as everyone knows, TCI had not one but two major fires in Ghent last year—the second of them truly disastrous. The building’s contents were incinerated in a colossal, uncontrolled, two-day burn.

Try that in your backyard, and see if you’re still considered a good neighbor.

Multiple explosions endangered the lives of firefighters, generated a massive plume, showered neighbors’ properties with oily pellets, and led to most Columbia County residents being told to spend the next day indoors.

And while the editorial calls TCI a “loyal employer,” the above series of calamities and dubious management have put company workers at risk:

According to Newburgh news reports, the Attorney General found the company “violated the toxic substances law by not training the employees to handle [PCBs].”
The aforementioned blast in Greenport tossed a worker 20 feet, sending him to the hospital with injuries.
Most tragically, a young man needlessly asphyxiated to death while cleaning a tank with freon at TCI in Ghent.

Compounding such problems is TCI’s apparent habit of keeping host communities in the dark about its intentions and operations:

In Newburgh, DEC “charged the firm with transporting regulated wastes without a permit.”
TCI’s failed 1988 plan to add an incinerator initially bypassed Ghent officials, leading to a costly legal wrangle with the Town of Ghent and neighbors, which dragged on for years.
TCI quietly filed another expansion plan with DEC and EPA last year, without notifying the Town of its intent to expand operations.
TCI likewise did not notify the Town that it had invited in a second company, PSS, to treat PCBs in a manner not covered by its Ghent permits, leading to the 2012 inferno.
TCI sued the Town to prevent it from exercising ordinary zoning and planning review. (A homeowner putting in a pool could expect more enforcement than TCI seems to tolerate.)

Meanwhile, though the Columbia Paper writes of “lost tax revenue” from TCI’s possible departure, the editorialist may not realize that this multimillion-dollar company paid less than $5,000 in Town, County and fire taxes in 2012.

A local fire company had to request a $10,000 budgetary increase to help cover expenses from responding to the TCI fire, making their presence a net loss for Ghent.

One gets the sense that the editorialist was striving so hard to appear balanced, that common sense fell off the beam. If TCI’s corporate history constituted a “good” track record, what would be a bad one?

NOTE: The above was submitted as a letter-to-the-editor this past weekend... Let’s see if The Columbia Paper prints it.

in Media & Publishing, Towns | Ghent | Permalink | Comments (1)

July 9, 2013

TCI granted six months to get out of Ghent

In an interim settlement of a specious lawsuit brought by TCI of NY, the Town of Ghent has agreed to give PCB (mis-) handler six months to find a new town to bedevil.

According to an attendee of yesterday’s hearing before judge Jonathan Nichols, TCI and Ghent have signed a “tolling agreement” which suspends the lawsuit. TCI had claimed in court filings that the Town’s attorney had a conflict of interest, and had asked Nichols to prevent Ghent from enforcing its Zoning code.

Assuming TCI finds a new home in one of three other towns they have approached, including Coeymans, the company will void its application to rebuild in Ghent, and the Town will hold TCI harmless for its actions. (Good riddance to bad rubbish?) The Albany Times-Union has previously reported that the company also has scoped out sites in Saratoga, Washington and Rensselaer counties.

The company also will pay $12,500 to cover Ghent’s expenses thus far related to the now-aborted reviews. If TCI has not found a new home by the start of 2014, it could in theory reinstate its legal objections, and resume its quixotic pursuit of fresh permits from Ghent, and would presumably have to contribute an additional retainer for that review. More likely, one suspects, is that the two parties would extend the tolling agreement for another 3-6 months to give TCI more time to skip town.

The most eyebrow-raising part of the agreement is an unusual clause demanded by TCI, which compels Ghent officials to “refrain” from any “involvement” or “interference” with the company’s efforts to find an alternate site in another place

This leaves a strong appearance that TCI is afraid that Town officials might be contacted by other municipalities to which the company has applied for asylum, and that the neighboring officials might hear details of their time in Ghent.

Considering that Ghent now seems eager to have this thorn in their side removed, it’s hard to imagine that it would do so. If anything, the clause seems as likely as anything to backfire. Just imagine someone from, say, the Coeymans Planning Board (which has already called TCI on the carpet) phones a Ghent official seeking advice. But Coeymans is told by Ghent told that it is under a gag order not to talk about TCI’s operations. Wouldn’t that set off as many alarm bells with the person calling as anything the official might tell them?

In any case, with TCI’s two 2012 fires extensively covered in the T-U, New York Times, YouTube, and various local news outlets, any potential new host doing even cursory research would probably stumble upon reports of the company’s past troubles. Wherever TCI lands, they are likely to face far more scrutiny and oversight than they have had to endure over the past three decades in Columbia County.

in Environment, Law, Planning & Land Use, Towns | Coeymans, Towns | Ghent | Permalink | Comments (3)

June 19, 2013

‘Fire Alley’ continues to generate news

A: Devastating house fire • B: Smith Control Systems, where Feight worked • C: Blaze at Amanda’s Fireplace • D: Two fires at TCI of NY • E: Feight residence • F: Structure fire at home • G: Shed/barn fire • NOT PICTURED: Meadowgreens fire

With news breaking of a bizarre terrorism arrest with connections to Columbia County, one can’t help but to wonder: What is it with the Route 9H corridor?

In a previous report, this site referred to a four-mile stretch of 9H as “Fire Alley,” with a series of major fires in just 2.5 years.

Five fires on 9H during this period included the May 2010 blaze which leveled Amanda’s Fireplace on 9H, between Falls Road and Falls Industrial Road. That fire was deemed an arson by investigators, though no one was ever arrested. Columbia County issued a $2.5 million stimulus bond to assist Amanda’s with rebuilding.

Just a stone’s throw from Amanda’s Fireplace on Falls Industrial Road one finds TCI of NY, the PCB handler/processor whose facility was devastated by a September 2012 fire. That inferno (and the overnight sequence of explosions) caused an evacuation of neighbors, with all residents within 15 miles told to stay indoors and turn off air conditioning for the day.

As also previously reported here, two additional fires (for a total of seven) occurred just a couple miles off Fire Alley in recent years, on nearby Knitt Road along the border of Ghent and Stockport.

A January 2008 structure fire at 28 Knitt Road forced a woman to jump from a second-story window to safety; and then a July 2011 barn/shed fire at 16 Knitt Road. Knitt Road turns into Falls Road as it heads east, coming to a T at Route 9H—the epicenter of Fire Alley.

And now, stories are breaking of the Federal complaint charging one Eric J. Feight as an alleged co-conspirator (with Glendon S. Crawford) in an outlandish plot to irradiate Muslims with a homemade X-ray device. Feight is listed as a registered Conservative in Columbia County Board of Elections records at 115 Knitt Road—several houses down from the barn and structure fires of 2008 and 2011.

As the Times-Union reports, the terrorism suspect

formerly worked as a computer software expert and “project engineer” for Smith Control Systems... A company official said Feight has not worked at the company since 2010.

Where is Smith Control Systems? Right next door to Amanda’s Fireplace on 9H. Smith Control is #1839, and Amanda’s is #1869.

Coincidence? Almost surely. (It should be noted, Mr. Feight and his accomplice are, innocent unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.) That said, it continues to amaze how consistently one isolated area of a rural county manages to generate both news, and trouble.

In any event, the complaint alleges:

FEIGHT has designed, identified and received needed parts, built, and successfully tested a working remote initiation device to remotely control an industrial x-ray system - which CRAWFORD later demonstrated - and that remote initiation device is powered by a plug-in cigarette lighter electrical source, consistent with CRAWFORD's requirement to put the whole system into a truck so that it can be used against human targets. FEIGHT is aware of CRAWFORD's plan that the remote initiation device be used to remotely control an industrial x-ray system to injure or kill human targets deemed undesirable, and, on November 14, 2012, FEIGHT met with CRAWFORD, UCE #2, and UCE #3 near Albany, NY to discuss the purpose of the project, assign tasks, and confirm his capability to design and build a remote initiation device.

And:

CRAWFORD and FEIGHT both have used the phrase "sterilize medical waste" to refer to the harming and killing of human beings, and stated that the purpose of their device is to kill human beings. From time to time, however, they each have expressed a reluctance to be the one who actually triggers the device to kill.

in Accidents & Emergencies, Crime, Towns | Ghent, Towns | Stockport | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 8, 2013

TCI to Coeymans, at least temporarily

Image: Bing Maps

The Albany Times-Union is reporting that TCI of NY, whose PCB-processing facility in Ghent was incinerated in a calamitous fire last August, has “set up temporary shop at the Port of Coeymans.”

Billing itself as “environmentally friendly” (mainly on the basis that barges are less polluting than trucks), the 12-year-old port is roughly 10 miles south of Albany, and directly across the Hudson River from Schodack Landing. As the aerial photograph shows, the Port is also near the Thruway, and located not far from some densely-populated neighborhoods. And it’s barely a half-mile from the Lafarge cement plant in Ravena.

The company told the T-U that they are operating “on a temporary basis in Coeymans while we continue to evaluate our long-term opportunities. A permanent facility in the Port of Coeymans is among the opportunities we are considering, and we have submitted a site plan to the Coeymans Planning Board for its review.” They refused, however, to explain how their operation would compare to their now-scorched Ghent business.

The article lists other sites still on the company’s radar in counties including Saratoga, Washington and Rensselaer (including East Greenbush , Rensselaer and Schodack), and states that returning to Ghent is still a possibility.

Prior to the Ghent fire, accidents at TCI included a worker’s onsite death from freon exposure; a failed incenerator proposal; a transformer explosion at their temporary home in Greenport; and another major fire at their Newburgh plant. At one point between their stints in Newburgh and Greenport, the company tried to move to Athens, but opposition from firefighters and residents squelched that plan.

The Coeymans Planning Board meets next on July 1st at 7 pm at 18 Russell Avenue, according to the Town’s website.

May 16, 2013

Another TCI debacle: 1987 explosion ‘rocked’ Greenport, injured worker

Not mentioned so far during the debate about TCI’s two fires (and desire to remain) in Ghent isthe company’s brief stay in the Town of Greenport during the late 1980s, after being kicked out of Ulster County.

And, as happened before with its mismanagement in Newburgh and later in Ghent, TCI’s Greenport activities resulted in a major explosion.

A front-page article in the June 22nd, 1987 edition of The Register-Star reported that a transformer blast that day “rocked an area within a half-mile” of TCI’s facility on the Industrial Tract.

The “blast” threw worker Louis Smith of Stuyvesant 20 feet, and landing him in Columbia Memorial Hospital with undisclosed injuries:

The explosion was audible at the Greenport town hall, according to Greenport Officer-in-Charge John Hawks... Greenport firemen were called to the scene [along with] Columbia County Sheriff Paul Proper and Undersheriff James Bertram.

EnCon officials were expected to arrive on the scene later this morning. Some transformers contain levels of PCBs. It was unknown this morning whether the explosion caused any leakage of the suspected carcinogens.

Detail of a Robert Ragaini photo of emergency workers tending to an injured TCI worker on the Industrial Tract in Greenport

A search of seven months of the Register’s back issues found no follow-up report on the cause of the blast or investigation of environmental fallout.

By 1988, TCI was reëstablished on Falls Industrial Road in Ghent, the blast apparently not having given that Town’s planning board any cause for concern. In March 1989, a young TCI worker (also named Smith, but no known relation) died after being overcome by fumes at TCI’s new plant.

The search for this article was prompted by a brief mention in a 1989 report on the fatality, alluding to the earlier Greenport explosion, spotted by Patti Matheney of GhentCANN.

Why this earlier explosion has never come up is anyone’s guess. Perhaps the barrage of major news of 1987—the Wiley Gates trial, a massive October snowstorm, the televised testimony of Philmont native Ollie North, the death of Jackie Gleason?—somehow blotted this event from local memory.

in Accidents & Emergencies, Environment, Towns | Ghent, Towns | Greenport | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 3, 2013

Explosive sodium found at TCI well before August inferno

Detail of a February 2012 report on an earlier fire at TCI, submitted five months before TCI’s calamitous, sodium-based explosions

Honoring the service of local firefighters ought to include taking every possible step to protect the lives that first responders put on the line every time they respond to a fire.

Unfortunately, in the case of the inferno last August at TCI of NY in Ghent, newly-uncovered evidence suggests that key officials may have ignored a direct warning which came well in advance of the company’s catastrophic August 2012 fire.

A report from February 2012 clearly demonstrates that the use of highly-explosive sodium metal at TCI (a processor of PCBs) was made known to multiple officials at least five months beforehand in a State Homeland Security report obtained by Patti Matheney of GhentCANN.

In the post-mortem discussions of the August disaster, it has been widely noted that scores of firefighters narrowly cheated death, withdrawing from the scene only moments before more than a dozen explosions rocked the Ghent night sky.

“We were only minutes away from bagpipes and flag-draped coffins,” Churchtown Fire Company 1st Lieutenant Nathan Chess wrote in a brave open letter to the community:

It is only based on sheer luck that a serious loss of life was avoided. It was only based on basic “off the cuff” comment by the company’s “keyholder” that the responding units were advised that there was a substantial amount of solid sodium stored in the plant. ... When exposed it creates an exothermic reaction and produces hydrogen gas (i.e.: Kaboom!).

Similarly, West Ghent Fire Chief Jim Cesternino praised TCI employee Tim Coons as a “guardian angel” and “hero” for rushing to alerting firefighters on the scene to the presence of sodium:

Coons was on scene and was able to provide us with information about some of the building contents. Providing that information to us saved firefighters lives.

However, neither luck nor guardian angels should have been needed that night, as the presence of sodium (and the danger it posed when doused with water) had already been reported to top County and West Ghent emergency managers earlier in the year. Nevertheless, documents show that water was sprayed into the building near this sodium, immediately touching off explosions.

Documents disclosed by The New York State Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Services now show that several key officials were alerted to the use of sodium metal by TCI subcontractor Power Station Subservices (PSS). Moreover, the explosion risk posed by sodium was described specifically.

On February 29th, 2012, Investigations Branch Deputy Chief Randi Shadic forwarded a report on TCI’s previous fire in several trailers outside the building in January. That earlier fire caused some $300,000 in damages and led to an extensive investigation of its cause. Page 7 of this widely-circulated February report said that in the wake of the January fire,

TCI staff provided Material Safety Data Sheets ... to the fire investigation team. The MSDS Sheets are for the products routinely handled, stored, produced and disposed of by both TCI and PSS. One of the products used by PSS identified as “40% Sodium Dispersion in Transformer Oil” is identified as being capable of “spontaneous combustion in moist air”. The same product is identified as “reacting violently with water.”

Copies of this report were sent by Homeland Security to West Ghent’s Cesternino, Columbia County Fire Coordinator James VanDeusen (now retired), and New York State Police Investigator William Mulren working out of the Livingston barracks on Route 9.

Again, this warning came five months prior to the much more dangerous and disastrous one in August.

Still, NYS Homeland Security’s interviews suggest that on the night of the second fire in August, the presence and danger posed by sodium at TCI came as news to leadership on the scene.

In an interview with investigators, Cesternino notes that Coons alerted him to the sodium sometime shortly after 10 pm at the scene of the fire -- and that he asked for “more information” about it, and asked for another company’s foam truck to be called in.

Nevertheless, the West Ghent chief’s interview and those of rank-and-file firefighters from the many companies responding indicates that teams were told to “drown” the fire via the roof.

This led, in the narrative of one Stockport firefighter, to an almost immediate reaction:

“Once we got a truck we used a deck gun and were spraying it through the overhead door at the rear. Initially we had the stream pointed to the right. I had them move it to the left or west and when we did the building started to rumble. It sounded like a hundred people pounding on the metal building and the fire really took off. Then we heard what sounded like a propane tank exploding. We had to pull back and hide behind the roll off dumpsters

Despite the “news” from Coons that sodium was in the building, and the request for a foam truck, Cesternino reports that

The plan was to surround and drownd [sic] the fire. Claverack was able to spray water through the top of the overhead door of the loading dock.... As soon as they started spraying water things started reacting inside the building. I was out front and a big blast of smoke came out the front. I could see what looked like camera flashes going off inside. The crews in the back were reporting explosions on the radio and saying they had to get out. I ordered an evacuation...

It is thus doubly perplexing and troubling to read that in spite of the warning from Homeland Security five months before, plus the warning from Coons just after the fire was discovered, firefighters were sent to douse parts of the building with water. It is of course possible that the sodium might have started exploding anyway, had any wet materials in the building come into contact with it as the fire progressed .

But the direct cause-and-effect described in these interviews—pops, reactions and explosions resulting from water sprays—leads to the hard conclusion that the risk may not have been adequately communicated to those putting their lives on the line for the community.

Also of note from these documents: The Columbia County Fire Coordinator’s office had requested Shadic’s unit’s assistance with determining the “origin and cause“ of the earlier January fire in part because it occurred “in the general vicinity of what had been a series of suspicious or incendiary fire[s],” Shadic stated in a January 27th email.

in Accidents & Emergencies, Counties | Columbia, Health, Planning & Land Use, Towns | Ghent | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 15, 2013

County airport numbers: Pie-in-the-sky?

Chart from Columbia County master plan for the airport in Ghent

With news of a proposed six-figure purchase of additional land for the Columbia County airport, the question arises: How much actual use does the airport get?

Flight data from the FAA suggests at least one answer: Not nearly so much as officials would have us believe.

Take a look at the numbers. A decade ago, the Columbia County Board of Supervisors commissioned a long-range plan for the County airport in Ghent, in part to satisfy FAA safety and other concerns.

That 2003 report included the above chart, indicating that the airport handled some 37,000 flights per year. By 2020, the airport was anticipated to be handling 52,000 flights per year, or 1,000 per week.

Meanwhile, the 2009 Town of Ghent Comprehensive Plan stated as a fact that “at present, the volume is about 50,000.” The Town also projected that the airport could handle volume as high as a whopping 230,000 transits.

So how much use does the airport really get? Other evidence suggests it is nothing even close to 50,000 flights.

Data obtained via the aviation site FlightAware shows that in the full year between December 2011 and December 2012, only 1,586 takeoffs and landings were recorded. FlightAware says it gets these numbers directly from the FAA itself.

Not 50,000. Not even 37,000. Less than 1,600.

A more detailed breakdown follows below.

IMAGE: Bing.com

“My impression is that activity at the airport has gone down significantly since the 2008 recession,” said one experienced pilot who has used the County runways for many years.

Now, not every flight into and out of a County airport gets reported to the FAA. The numbers above do not appear to include many flight school trips, which can involve a lot of repeated takeoffs and landings. Under Visual Flight Rules (“VFRs”), during good weather and high visibility some other flights are not necessarily required to file a flight plan, either.

Yet even if you triple the FlightAware numbers—adding 1,600 training flights and 1,600 VFR flights—you still wind up with total yearly activity of less than 5,000 trips in and out. That’s only about 10% of what is stated in the Ghent Comp Plan and the County’s projected master plan numbers.

In other words, 90% less that the official line.

Indeed, both basic math and interviews with neighbors suggest that there is nothing like 50,000 flights per year out of the County airport. As the comparison chart below shows, 50,000 compute to just under 140 per day... And given that Richmor Aviation made a handshake deal with neighbors about 25 years ago to limit flights to the hours between 7 am–11 pm, that would mean roughly 9 takeoffs or landings per hour, or one every 6-7 minutes.

Anyone who has driven along that section of 9H, or lived in that area, or visited friends there, knows that planes are a rarity, not something which occurs every 6 minutes. Just sit in a car in the Kozel’s parking lot, and you can verify that doesn’t happen. Or, surf over to FlightAware’s live dashboard, and see for yourself how few arrivals and departures are scheduled on a moment-to-moment basis.

Moreover, small airport use tends to be heavier in warmer months, so the average in summertime would likely be more like every 3-4 minutes, if the County and Ghent numbers were in fact real.

Using the same basic math, the projected maximum capacity of 230,000 flights cited in Ghent’s Comp Plan seems as ridiculous as it would be dangerous: 230,000 transits per year would mean almost 20,000 per month, 4,500 per week, over 600 per day, and 25 per hour around the clock including the wee hours of the night. Limiting activity to the 16-hour community noise abatement deal, there would be a plane zipping in or out every 90 seconds or so.

If such official numbers were at all accurate, living near the County airport could begin to resemble life near LaGuardia.

The question of how much the airport is really used becomes all the more relevant now that the County has voted to a approve a $629,000 offer to the owners of Meadowgreens to expand the airport and bring it more into FAA compliance. (Few were there to witness the vote, in part because the local paper of record, The Register-Star, published the wrong date for the meeting.)

Given how out-of-sync the County’s planning numbers appear to be with reality, this could pose a problem with FAA funders. When the County submits this $629,000 expansion plan to the Feds for approval, it will be interesting to see what numbers it claims.

January 29, 2013

$23 million in damages at TCI, but no smoke alarms

An official report on the catastrophic fire last summer TCI in Ghent reveals that despite an estimated $23,000,000 in damages, the PCB processor did not have smoke alarms, sprinklers or standpipes installed in the building.

The $23 million estimated loss is doubly surprising given that the property was only assessed at less than 2.5% of that amount. According to Ghent’s final 2012 assessment roll, TCI’s assessment was just $564,259, resulting in less than $5,000 in Town and County property taxes.

The report’s existence only came to light due to a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request and subsequent article by John Mason for The Register-Star on January 26th.

Chief investigator Randi Shadic of the NYS Office of Fire Prevention and Control forwarded the results to the County Fire Coordinator, West Ghent Fire Chief, and State Police Investigator in charge, but requested that they “not release the report or related documents unless it’s pursuant to a subpoena or Freedom of Information Law request.”

Among other things, the report reveals that:

During the fire, a 20,000 tank of mineral oil “suffered a catastrophic failure which caused the entire tank to become airborne, exit the structure through the roof and land a great distance to the north and east of the structure.”
The structure at 39 Falls Industrial Road “is owned by KMOJ Acquisitions LLC of Kearney, New Jersey and is doing business as TCI of NY LLC.” Note: The 2012 Ghent tax rolls show the property as owned by TCI Realty of NY, LLC.
Yet another company, Power Substation Services (PSS) of West Virginia, “had been operating at the TCI facility for approximately two years.” Note: Extensive records obtained via FOIL by this site from Ghent give no indication that TCI ever notified the Town of the presence there of PSS or KMOJ.
The report says that “PSS is a business that processes transformer oils containing polychlorinate biphenyl (PCB's) at a level higher than that which TCI is allowed to handle.”
Investigators were not able to make their first entry into the structure until September 6th, almost five weeks after the fire. Some materials had already been removed from the site by that time. Concerned about “the possibility of chemical contamination” in the building, they had to wear Level C hazardous materials suits, respirators and other safety gear to do so.
The fire was discovered by a TCI employee who responded to a “motion alarm activation inside the building.” His first call was to a manager, who called the alarm company, who called Columbia County 911. Note: If you ever discover a fire, it’s probably a good idea to call 911 first.
TCI had a burglar alarm system in place, which went off at 9:55 but was assumed by the alarm company to have been triggered by a bird or other animal. It went off again four minutes later at 9:59—at which point the company rep evidently went to see what was happening. The report attributes this motion detection to “the movement of smoke or possibly flames,” not a person. Note: State application materials submitted but apparently withdrawn by TCI earlier in the year appear to indicate that the building was also under video surveillance, but no mention of such records is made in this report.
Firefighters entered the smoke-filled building through the front entrance and also by forced entry through the rear door, eventually spotting flames. Note: It is not indicated what masks or other breathing apparatus or chemical exposure protection were used, if any.
PSS was handling PCBs in “two mobile processing units,” a “process rig” and a “dehydration rig,” with “numerous 55 gallon steel drums stored under and immediately next to the processing trailers.”
“The combustible portions of the trailers were nearly 100% consumed by fire,” with the steel drums also sustaining “extensive fire and heat damage.” Some collapsed, and others had “holes burned through the sides.”
The steel beams, trusses and metal roof panels of the building likewise collapsed, testament to the extreme heat of the fire.
The fire was not believed to have been “at floor level” initially.
The report favors the hypothesis that the fire orginated “in the south/west portion of the warehouse area of the structure near the processing trailer units.” It discounts or rules out numerous other causes, from electrial wiring problems to a lightning strike.
Repairs were made to PSS’s processing trailer on the day of the fire, specifically replacing a heater used to melt the sodium used by PSS to break down PCBs. A higher wattage heater (7,500 instead of 6,000 watts) was installed.
This heater “was left on” overnight on purpose “to resume processing of oil” the next morning.
The report states that the PSS employees reported the “operating temperature of this heater and mixer chest is 250 degrees,” while also noting that “the ignition temperature” of sodium is 239 degrees ... and 250 degrees. That suggests the sodium could have been ignited by the heater, as acknowledged in the report.
Another possible cause cited is “the possibility of a chemical reaction or spontaneous heating of materials combined in [a] trash drum” used to dispose of oil-soaked rags and other materials alongside the trailer.

Endnotes: Ghent resident Patti Matheney spoke with a representative of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, who expressed surprise that PSS was handling PCBs of a concentration indicated in the report, and who requested to see a copy of it.

Neither the Feds, State, County or Town of Ghent are known to have imposed any fines or cited the facility for any permit, fire or other code violations related to the disaster last summer. The Town has, however, indicated that the West Ghent fire company will need to increase its budget by 10% as a result of costs incurred for fighting the fire.

in Accidents & Emergencies, Counties | Columbia, Media & Publishing, Towns | Ghent | Permalink | Comments (2)

December 6, 2012

Ghent planners to TCI: First, pay your bills

At last night’s meeting of the Ghent Planning Board, it emerged that TCI of NY is behind in payments to the Town of Ghent to cover engineering expenses related to cleanup of its Falls Industrial Road site, according to firsthand reports from attendees.

And until such payments are brought up to date, and until the company also puts $10,000 more in escrow for review, the Ghent planners do not intend to take up an application from the company to rebuild and resume operations.

TCI’s Brian Hemlock arrived with his attorney, Bill Better, as well as an engineer from Crawford & Associates and a representative of architect Dennis Wedlick, in an attempt to present an application—but ran into the stumbling block of past due bills and future escrow requirements. The application materials were dropped off, but not considered.

GhentCANN’s Patti Matheney reports: “It seems they have used up all of the escrow for the Town engineer to oversee the clean-up of the site and there are outstanding bills. The Board and [attorney] Ted Guterman were adamant they will not look at the new plans or ask the town engineer to review them until they put 10K into a new escrow account.”

Matheney also noted that a TCI representative “specifically stated that only non-regulated PCB's were dismantled at the plant and they do not handle any regulated PCB equipment. He made no mention of the DEC permit request from June of this year.”

However, that 2012 application indicated TCI’s plans “to store and consolidate regulated PCB wastes,” preparing them “for shipment to EPA approved and alternate disposition facilities,” an apparent contradiction.

Hemlock also circulated a heavily-massaged p.r. statement [ page 1 | page 2 ]. TCI worked with a public relations firm, Blass Communications, in the wake of August’s catastrophic inferno—its second fire of 2012—but it isn’t clear if they are still in the picture.

Lastly, Matheney writes that Planning Board chairman “Jonathan Walters asked the Board to "do their homework" over the next month and come back to the Jan. meeting with questions for TCI.

Audio of the meeting recorded by another resident is expected to be posted online later today.

in Environment, Planning & Land Use, Towns | Ghent | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 5, 2012

TCI pursued expansion permits from State and Feds, leaving Ghent out of the loop

Seeking to signficantly expand its operations, TCI of NY quietly filed hundreds of pages of applications in the past year with State and Federal authorities—without ever applying to agencies of the Town of Ghent to comply with local zoning.

Buried in a 440-page document, revelations of these planned changes by TCI in the year before their catastrophic August fire emerged after a long wait for a response to a Freedom of Information Law request to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.

DEC finally coughed up the 440-page document three months after this site placed multiple reminder calls and emails. (FOIL requests are normally dealt with within 5-to-20 days.) The State application, which includes materials submitted to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, was finally produced only once this site notified the DEC public relations office that a press release detailing the agency’s non-responsiveness was in the works.

The document obtained is eye-opening to say the least. TCI’s application materials reveal, among other things, that the company sought permission to begin:

• Handling regulated PCB waste of a much higher concentration than non-PCB or unregulated PCB waste;

• Installing a new 8,000-gallon PCB storage tank;

• Storing 280,000 pounds of untested, undrained electrical equipment which are assumed to have under 499 ppm of PCBs;

• Storing 70,000 pounds of undrained PCB-contaminated electrical equipment;

• Storing 60 drums of PCB-contaminated fluid; and

• Storing 40,000 pounds of PCB transformers.

Minutes of the Ghent Planning Board do not indicate that such major changes to the TCI facility were ever brought before them for review and approval.

At an August 1st Planning Board meeting held just hours before the massive fire was discovered, TCI’s representatives from Crawford & Associates presented minor amendments to a site plan for a 650-square-foot office addition, stating that “nothing new will be going on at the plant, only existing work.”

A request by one member to review any DEC permitting was noted in the minutes, but the request was “withdrawn” f0llowing these assurances by TCI as well as from the Planning Board Chair that everything was in order.

Legally, an applicant must seek permission from local authorities for activities covered by local zoning codes, even if they are permitted by other agencies. Indeed, that is just what scuttled TCI’s attempt to build a PCB incinerator in Ghent in the late 1980s; even though NYS DEC casually greenlighted the project, the Town (and neighbors) objected and stopped it from happening based on local rules.

Moreover, under the Ghent Zoning Code new activities and changes in use must be brought before the appropriate board(s) when their scope exceeds their original permit, and/or when changes are proposed after the date of changes to the Code.

The 440-page application submitted to the State and Feds also includes many eyebrow-raising statements. For example, a review of working conditions and worker qualifications concedes that while some employees would be working with materials such as explosives and toxic chemicals, it then goes on to say that these workers will not need any prior experience or training. A young employee died at TCI after exposure to freon gas in 1989.

The Ghent Planning Board meets again tonight at 7 pm at Town Hall, and TCI once again may be on the agenda, seeking to rebuild its facility, which also had a fire in January. NOTE CORRECTED MEETING TIME

A copy of the 440-page application (which is a very large file) is available upon request via email.

in Counties | Columbia, Environment, Towns | Ghent | Permalink | Comments (2)

November 15, 2012

TCI finally not a no-show

After many meetings at which TCI of NY was expected to appear, but did not show up, the company finally sidled into a Planning Board “application night” meeting on Wednesday. They were accompanied by their engineers at Crawford & Associates. Ghent resident and realtor Chris Bishop captured the audio:

in Planning & Land Use, Towns | Ghent | Permalink | Comments (0)

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