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.
