Some recent postings here prompted a longtime local resident to share a copy of an old 1984 Hudson Valley Magazine article entitled, An Oil Refinery in our Backyard (There May Soon Be One in Hudson, on the River).
Its authors, Mary Beth Pfeiffer and Robert Miraldi, could not have imagined the extent to which their piece would underscore for future generations how the more things change in Hudson, the more its politics remain crude and unrefined.
First proposed in 1983, the Octane Petroleum project would have entailed a refinery, some 22 storage tanks holding up to 25,000 barrels of oil, and the discharge of some 2.6 million gallons of wastewater annually—all sprawled over 9 acres at the Waterfront, including parts of the river itself, 1.2 acres of which would have been landfilled.
Here are just a few of the more eerily familiar factoids and quotations which have been repeated, in so many words, in later and current controversies:
- Then-Mayor Mike Yusko riffing on the then-ubiquitous Rolaids commercial, saying “Relief would be spelled O-C-T-A-N-E.”
- Refinery opponents arguing that amenities such as “a restaurant, park or public boating facility could generate money for the city without the same risks.”
- Officials of a foreign-owned company arguing that “this stretch of the river is good for little else but industry.”
- HCDPA chairman Art Koweek stating that the oil refinery would “save this city” and was “a matter of economic survival for Hudson.”
- Koweek adding that the refinery would “put out less pollution than the local hospital”; that those who want access to the river should “go out of town”; and that anyway, the Hudson is “not a recreational river.”
- Initial promises of 300 jobs dropping to 146, and then to 43, and then down to 32, even with the State promising to loan $3.6 million to the company for job creation.
- Activist John Cody of SHOW (Save Hudson’s Only Waterfront) noting that “the city has been unresponsive to their legitimate concerns.”
- City officials trashing Cody’s 300-member organization as “a local vocal group that wants to live in the past.”
- The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Department noting that a false choice was being presented to the citizens, with no justification for “the conclusion that only two alternatives are available.”
- The same Federal agency expressing “concern for the effect of the project on South Bay Wetlands, a sprawling marshy area that would be cut by the facility’s access road.”
- The NYS Department of State writing to Mayor Yusko that the refinery “would have a significant adverse effect upon the neighboring historic district,” into which $12 million in public funding had been invested in the previous 15 years—with the city seeming “ready [...] to give up on the revival.”
- The Department of State also writing to the Mayor that the (now-endangered) American shad is active nearby, for example using the shoals of Middle Ground Flats “for spawning and nursery grounds.”
Fast-forward to 2010, and we have the New York State Department of State again contemplating a deeply-flawed new Waterfront plan for Hudson. That plan has been in the works since about the time the Octane Petroleum project was finally shelved in the late ’80s, with Hudson officials such as Linda Davidson acting to the bitter end as if the refinery idea was still viable and in play.
As previously reported here, concerned citizens and activists were also subjected to an almost endless stream of press releases and abuse from then-HCDPA director Edmond Schorno, as well as other City leaders such as Cemetery Commissioner Mark Salomon—who pronounced himself “thoroughly disgusted” with refinery opponents, arguing that they “oppose everything” and nothing would “satisfy” those “not interested in the well-being of our local citizenry.”
The full Hudson Valley article may be downloaded in PDF format by clicking here..
