The Holcim (formerly St. Lawrence Cement) Catskill plant is closing, according to a company press release posted here. The Boston Globe also has a brief report, closely tracking the language of the release.)
Despite empty claims in the past that the cement industry is “recession-proof” (in fact, its fortunes are closely tied to wildly-fluctuating building trends), it was just a matter of time until they shuttered the place. The Catskill plant is inefficient, and too small to deliver the profit margins expected by its Swiss owners. This rapacious company wants to build big, cheap mega-plants (like its St. Genevieve operation in Missouri), not run a more modestly-scaled plant responsibly.
Meanwhile, the Catskill plant has been racking up safety violations and environmental complaints, further digging into their bottom line. With the national economy in a slup over the past few years, those fines have been accompanied by steady layoffs.
And in order to get the kind of profits out of this facility that they really want, the company would have to sink tens of millions into a major new expansion proposal—one that would involve steep engineering, lobbying, legal, consulting, and public relations costs—with a low probability of approval, given the highly sensitive location right on the River. That’s why, in the summer of 2005, I predicted that closure was just a matter of time.
The company is of course spinning this closure as “mothballing,” which seems more aimed at tamping down investor disappointment than a serious threat to reopen someday. Anything is possible. But keeping permits active, equipment and grounds maintained, and the prospect of finding skilled cement workers years later make reopening.
Given their history of abandonment and neglect of their former host communities, more likely is that over time this site will come to look like the derelict Alsen Coal Terminal at Smith’s Landing, or the rusting junk and buried debris found on Holcim’s Hudson and Greenport properties.
Folks in Germantown, it should be said, showed incredible integrity in joining the fight against SLC Grenport. They recognized that the newer, much larger plant would pollute even more than the plant in their view right across the river, and trusted that eventually that bad actor would disappear, too. Now it has, and I’m very happy for them.
