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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.

Germantown plane down in Hudson River took off from Copake

The Register-Star reports that authorities “have tentatively identified the plane that crashed into the Hudson River near Germantown yesterday as a Grumman G-44A, an old amphibious military reconnaissance craft, that left a private air field in Copake at about 4 p.m. Thursday.” (Earlier reports had suggested that the plane took off from Richmor Aviation in Ghent.)

Police are not releasing the assumed pilot’s name, but it is not difficult to ascertain what private airfields exist at that location. This website and others list a “Copake Lake Seaplane Base” and “B Flat Farm Airport” close by each other in the town, each operated by Michael B. Braunstein.

The reference to a seaplane would appear likely to correspond to the “amphibious” craft specified in the article above. Braunstein has two Craryville mailing addresses, one on Golf Course Road, the other on Country Club Road.

$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.

Storm reports and outage maps

You can check the status of your power (and possible restoration times) at the links below:

NYSEG Outage Viewer | National Grid Power Outage Map

As of 10:30 pm, NYSEG shows over 900 customers without power, and National Grid shows over 3,000. Of those with the latter service, Germantown, Livingston and Taghkanic appear to have the most outages.

The storm at this point has an erratic, volatile feel to it. For a half-hour this evening, it was quiet and dry, and stars could be seen through breaks in the rapidly-moving clouds overhead.

Here are some of the tips that have come in so far, but at this point they are too numerous to mention:

• Power is out in the Glenco Mills area as of 8 pm, with sparks seen flying off a pole on Old Route 82;
• A downed tree and power line closed Route 22 in Hillsdale near Route 21 around 5 pm, according to a Philmont resident; UPDATE: Officials say 22 is back open;
• Multiple trees down on Route 28 have knocked power out in parts of Kinderhook, according to Columbia County 911.
• Power went out around Churchtown a bit before 9 pm;
• On Facebook, Columbia County 911 reported the closure around 11:30 pm of Route 9 between County Route 10 and Maple Lane in Livingston, due to “several power poles down,” saying that this “will be an extended closure.”

If you have storm-related news, pictures or alerts, feel free to post them below in comments, or email sandy@sampratt.com ... Lastly, this NOAA Flash animation of the storm’s water vapor loop is pretty amazing.

UPDATE: As of Tuesday morning, it's breezy but calm and mostly dry here in Taghkanic. Seems we were mostly spared.

TCI files to rebuild (but screws that up, too)

According to well-placed sources, PCB handler/processor TCI of NY filed an application last week with the Town of Ghent to rebuild its facility on Falls Industrial Park Road. The company’s application is said to have been accompanied by a check which has been placed in escrow by the Town.

However, the application reportedly has been returned to TCI as incomplete, as it did not contain all of the required information. Some town officials have informally signaled that TCI would need to go before its planning board if it wished to resume operations

As it happens, the Ghent Town Board has its regularly-scheduled meeting tonight (Thursday) at 7:30 pm at Town Hall, located at 2306 State Route 66.

To date, the Town has not cited TCI for any of many evident zoning code violations which have been brought to its attention. Activities such as fuel and explosives storage, handling of high-concentration PCBs, safety precautions and hazard prevention, and the introduction of multiple tenants into a building, are all clearly regulated by the Town’s zoning code and State fire safety regulations which are the Town’s obligation to enforce. Records obtained via FOIL and from private legal files held by neighbors indicate that many or most of the company’s uses of the site have never been the subject of a permitting review.

TCI left Ulster County in the mid-1980s after a fire similar to the one in Ghent led  Newburgh fire and code enforcement officials, as well as State regulators, to cite the company for multiple violations. The company then attempted to set up shop again in Greene County, but were blocked among other things by stiff opposition from Athens firefighters, who noted that Athens did not have the equipment or resources to fight a major fire at such a facility. It was then that TCI came to Columbia County, representing themselves as an electronics recycler, and claiming that any transformers accepted onsite would be drained and contain at most scarce traces of PCBs.

In addition to having two fires at its plant in just the past year, TCI’s tenure in Ghent includes the death of a young worker on the job due to exposure to freon gas, and two failed applications (one to build an incinerator, the other to process household hazardous waste) which cost the Town enormous legal fees.

Bits & bites

Image from Star Chefs

It’s been a light week for posting here, due to other obligations, and also the fact that I don’t like to post just for the sake of posting... That said, here are a few regional tidbits worth reporting:

• Chef/author Zak Pelaccio’s much-anticipated upstate restaurant with Jori Jayne Emde on South 3rd Street in Hudson reportedly will be called Fish & Game, with renovations continuing at a fever pace in hopes of opening this winter.


• HUMP, a/k/a the Hudson Museum of Photography, opens this Saturday with a solo show by Stephen Johnson entitled Moonman. HUMP is located at 552 Warren Street.


• After a hiatus following the death of Don Blasko, his wife Mady has reopened the Turnpike Inn.


• In other Town of Ghent drinking news, longtime Kozel’s bartender Ned has stepped down to enjoy some well-deserved leisuretime after many years of solid service. It’s rare to find a real oldschool barkeep of Ned’s caliber around here.


• Laetitia Hussain’s recent three-story installation at John Davis Gallery, Sycamorphology has sold and is said to be headed to a publicly-accessible space in New York City.


• According to several sources the Laskin family is no longer involved with the operation of TCI of NY, the PCB waste company David Laskin moved to Ghent from Newburgh after a fire there in the 1980s. It thus presumably was just a coincidence that (as several other sources have pointed out) the 165-acre Laskin family compound in Old Chatham went on the market for $3,200,000 on August 3rd—just two days after the most recent and most catastrophic TCI fire.


• Also regarding TCI, Albany TV stations and other print outlets are reporting that the August 1st fire has been cleared of any suspicion of arson by the New York State Police, though their official report on the cause of the fire is not complete. The August conflagration was TCI’s second fire of 2012, and occurred in the context of a series of other fires in the Route 9H corridor—one of which was affirmatively deemed an arson. (Since the time of this site’s post on that topic, residents have noted several additional fires on roads just slightly off 9H.)


• It’s come to this site’s attention that several Hudson elected officials are unaware that the City has an adopted Comprehensive Plan, which can be downloaded in two parts via this link. The plan straddled the Cranna and Scalera administrations, being developed in 2000-2001 and passed in 2002. Due to the then-raging St. Lawrence Cement controversy, and the City’s decision to hire SLC’s own planning firm as its consultant, the final plan was greatly watered down, but it does include a few useful nuggets; more on that next week, probably.


• This Sunday will feature the last farmer’s market of the season in Philmont, according to Sally Baker of PB, Inc. The market’s hours are 10 am to 1 pm.

Raw video of Ghent meeting on TCI

Patti Matheney has posted on Vimeothis one-hour video

of last Wednesday’ Ghent Town Board meeting (9/20/12), in which the TCI fire was discussed.

20 questions about TCI

Photo: US EPA. (More images of the TCI fire here)

On Thursday at 7:30 pm, the Ghent Town Board will hold its regularly-scheduled meeting. Many expect there will be people present to ask the Town’s leaders for their thoughts on the towering August 1st inferno at TCI. (So far, there has been no public statement on the issue from the Town apart from a well-deserved thank you to first responders.)

Much has been learned about TCI of NY and its operations since the fire. But each piece of new information has itself raised many new doubts and concerns. Below are just 20 of the more obvious and urgent questions* that remain to be answered:

1. Which operations at the TCI site actually had Town of Ghent permits—if any?


2. Why would a business which reportedly has millions in annual revenues pay less than $4,200 in total County, Fire and Town taxes?


3. What has been the cost to the Town, County, State and Feds from this fire, and which of those costs will be reimbursed?


4. Why did State reps from DEC decline to take samples of the oily, black clumps which fell all over nearby residents’ houses and properties, some of whom have had to replace their pools?


5. When was explosive sodium introduced into the facility on Falls Industrial Park Road—and why was 880 gallons of it being stored near nitrogen and flammable materials?


6. Since sodium is used to dechlorinate and detoxify PCBs, were PCBs being treated onsite—and if so, was there a laboratory set up there for this purpose?


7. Why was the West Ghent fire chief not made aware in advance of the presence of sodium in the building, whereas the Ghent fire chief (and Planning Board Chair) has said that he “was acutely aware of what materials were stored at TCI”?


8. Why were PCB transformers found onsite with levels in the 1,000-2,000 parts per million (ppm) range, when the company had promised to only accept drained transformers, and has stated that it only handled concentrations less than 50 ppm?


9. In the same context, why can manifests documenting large shipments of PCB materials to and from TCI be found in State records?


10. Were all tankers and other liquid storage units on the site properly permitted and marked—and why was such a vast quantity of oil, gas and other fuels present on site?


11. Who represents KMOJ Acquisitions and Power Substation Solutions, when did they join TCI in their Ghent building, how do these three companies relate to each other, and why is TCI mainly speaking now through p.r. reps?


12. Does the Laskin family still have a financial stake in the company, and what do the present owners have to say for themselves?


13. How many people were really working at TCI, how many are still on payroll, and why haven’t we heard from them?


14. Given that Newburgh’s firefighters destroyed their equipment after exposure to a fire there, and condemned TCI’s previous facility, and that Athens’ firefighters rejected the company entirely, is it fair to continue exposing first responders to such extraordinary risks?


15. Considering TCI’s history in Newburgh and Athens, and the death of a young worker in its Ghent facility, and the company’s protracted litigation with neighbors and the Town of Ghent over a late ’80s incinerator proposal, and its abortive attempt to add household hazardous waste in the ’90s, and their apparent expansion of activities, and the two recent fires, is it unreasonable to view this company as a “nuisance industry,” as prohibited by the Ghent Zoning Code?


16. What is the status of the investigation into the fire’s cause, given that this was the second fire at TCI this year—and is this part of a pattern of devastating structure fires in the 9H corridor, including at least one that has been deemed arson?


17. Why did the Town Board miss the portion of the public meeting at the West Ghent Fire Station which did not overlap with their own (much briefer) meeting earlier that evening—and why did TCI and all but one County Supervisor skip it, too?


18. What if anything was done in the days after the Wednesday night fire to prevent runoff from the site (knowing that a large storm was coming on Sunday), and what is being discharged now into the nearby Widow’s Creek, with the State’s apparent blessing??


19. Why hasn’t the hotspot of PCBs found on the TCI site resulted in further testing in the surrounding area, why wasn’t the more expensive and accurage form of testing done, as recommended by experts such as Dr. David Carpenter and Dr. Mitchell Gaynor—and why didn’t any officials insist on performing the testing for highly-carcinogenic dioxin, which was originally promised?


20. If residents downwind have developed health problems (or develop them later) which might be related to this fire, do they have any recourse besides paying for their own investigations and health care?

The full set of reports on TCI by this site can be read (in reverse chronological order) by clicking here.

* ENDNOTE: A request was sent to the company for an interview a month ago, but no response has been received to date. If TCI (or anyone else) wishes to respond to any of these questions, they are invited to do so in the comments or by email to: ghentfire@sampratt.com

Observing TCI

It’s not online (yet), but a comprehensive article by Tracy Frisch about the TCI of NY fire appears in the new print edition of The Hill Country Observer. In addition to gathering many key details of the August 1st inferno (including several mentions of this site), Frisch includes an second piece addressing TCI’s track record in Newburgh, Athens and Ghent.

The Observer is distributed free and can be found in many coffee and lunch places, and other around the region. To find a copy, a list of their distribution points is posted here.

TCI: What’s the story on what they stored?

Cleanup at TCI is being closely guarded. PHOTO: Lance Wheeler

What was stored at TCI, the PCB waste handler whose building went up in flames earlier this month? And what was the company supposed to be storing?

An engineering report was released recently by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), disclosing what TCI has pieced together so far about materials present in its Ghent facility at the time of its massive August 1st inferno.

That inventory appears to run up against other public statements by the company and official sources, and against the past expections of the Town of Ghent. Such conflicting information in turn points to key questions about about what TCI was permitted to store onsite in the first place. In several cases, it appears that the company obtained materials handling and transport permits from State or Federal agencies, without updating the Town or local firefighting companies about new activities.

To come to grips with these seeming contradictions requires a brief trip back in time, as well as a review of more recent information which has come to light. (Regular readers will have to bear with any repetitions below.) These questions may prove central to the question of whether TCI will be able to rebuild, and how residents can be protected from similar disasters in the future, whether involving this company or others like it.

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This site has previously noted the discovery of documents sent by Town of Ghent attorney Ted Guterman to the Town’s Planning Board chairman on behalf of the Town Board in 1989. Guterman attached to his cover letter what he called “a Position Statement that the Town of Ghent has issued in connection with to [sic] TCI, Inc.”

This letter came several years after TCI received a building permit, and was in response to a proposed incinerator the company sought to add to its Falls Industrial Road site. That incinerator never came to be. But the Town’s Position Statement contained many eye-opening statements about the genesis of the facility—statements which are especially relevant today, since the company has had two fires in eight months, and says it intends to rebuild.

Among many other things, the Town’s two-page letter stated that:

• “The Town of Ghent has always been and continues to be concerned wth any possible environmental impact evolving out of the operations of TCI, Inc.”

• “When TCI initially applied for a use permit in 1986... [i]t was specifically indicated that the process would not include nor would TCI accept any material that has been manufactured as PCB equipment.”

• “It was further indicated that any oil filled electrical equipment would be tested and drained prior to be received at the premises in order to insure that there were no PCBs.”

• “The Town is further concerned that the process, if approved by ENCON, will not result in any toxic waste generated or disposed of on the property or through the air, including PCBs.”

• “[T]he Town of Ghent Zoning Ordinance contains a provision specifically prohibiting storage collection, retention or utilization of toxic waste products or by-products or other similar toxic chemicals in any district within the Town of Ghent.”

Got that? No PCB equipment, no PCBs, no disposal of PCBs or other waste through the air and no storage of toxic waste products or by-products or other similar toxic chemicals in any district. Information which slowly has come to light in the aftermath of the TCI suggest that at least some of the activities the Town had deemed unwelcome were in fact occurring at the facility.

Again, all of the direct quotes above come from Ghent Town Board’s own 1989 statement, as conveyed by its lawyer. And as we’ve seen previously, those sentiments were echoed at the time in a Times-Union article which quoted attorney Jason Shaw, who was then representing the nearby Gallagher Stud farm, as stating:

“TCI was not forthcoming about the presence of PCBs when it applied three years ago to open its operation. I don’t think TCI was up-front about the fact that there would be toxic substances at the facility... They did not clarify the definition they used in an attempt to muddy the issue.”

The T-U also wrote at the time that “Town attorney Theodore Guterman said he remembers [TCI chief David] Laskin telling the Planning Board there would be no PCBs on the property.”

 

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Now, compare this 1980s background concerning what was planned to be stored on the TCI site with the inventory reported in a memoradum by Hudson-based engineering firm Crawford & Associates Engineers, and posted recently on the DEC’s website.

In the Crawford memorandum, the firm’s vice president Brandee Nelso states that though TCI’s records were destroyed in its massive August 1st fire, the company has been attempting to reconstruct its storage from discussions with clients. Nelson states that “according to the eecords TCI has obtained, quantities of regulated and non-regulated materials at TCI are estimated as follows:”

• 750,000 to 1,000,000 pounds of non-regulated materials consisting primarily of electrical equipment

• Non-regulated mineral oil – approximately 125,000 gallons Diesel fuel – approximately 500 gallons

• (3) 6,800 pound transformers, each with an estimated 255 gallons of dielectric fluid (mineral oil) with PCB concentrations of 930 ppm, 1,300 ppm and 1,600 ppm, respectively.

• 9 drums of PCB Debris, which it typically soil or absorbent materials, with a total weight of approximately 1,779 kilograms

• 6 bushings, each with 15 gallons of 50-499 ppm PCB, having a total weight of 1,304 kilograms

• 2 Oil & Water Drums, used for floor washdown and assumed to have PCBs, totaling 100 gallons and having a weight of approximately 462 kilograms. 

In a telephone interview on August 7th, this site asked Kenneth Bogdan, Ph.D of the State Department of Health’s Bureau of Toxic Substance Assessment whether his State agency had any firm idea of what was stored at TCI. Bogdan indicated that while it was unclear at the time, he believed there was only one drum of PCBs onsite—a statement that mirrored other official reassurances on the Thursday afternoon the fire.

Mason

Similarly, John Mason of Hudson-Catskill Newspapers had reported on August 10th that company co-owner Brian Hemlock and former controller Fran Vecellio “have said there were likely to be very few PCBs in the building at the time of the fire.” Hemlock was further quoted as saying that: 

“Only equipment testing less than 50 ppm are accepted and processed at TCI of NY, LLC.”

Yet the Crawford inventory shows that TCI now believes it had not one but eleven drums onsite which contained an unspecified concentration of PCBs, and 90 gallons of bushings containing PCBs in the hazardous 50-499 ppm (parts per million) concentration, plus three transformers containing 765 gallons of fluid with a whopping 930-1,600 ppm of PCBs.

Indeed, a DEC “investigation has determined that three transformers located inside the facility at the time of the fire contained levels of PCBs between 1,000 and 2,000 ppm,” far in excess of both the company’s original stated intent, and more recent statements.

 

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Oddly, the Crawford inventory of storage at TCI does not mention sodium. Sodium is known to cause violent explosions when it comes in contact with water and other substance, and has been repeatedly cited as a principal firefighting concern on the night of the inferno. Sodium would be a likely cause of the 10-15 fireballs witnessed by first responders and neighbors on the night of the catastrophe.

As WAMC’s Dave Lucas reported on August 14th:

“[T]he building housed mineral oil tanks, tractor trailers containing fuel oil, propane tanks, and other hazardous substances, including sodium that came from transformers disposed of at TCI.”

State records indicate another limited liability company, KMOJ Acquisitions LLC, which like TCI is incorporated in Delaware and appears closely related to TCI, stores petroleum in bulk on the site.

A consent order just signed with DEC (which allows TCI and KMOJ to move stormwater into the nearby Widow’s Creek) indicates a number of permits the State has on file for the company that may not have been known to local officials. DEC notes for example, permitting for the site as a “registered petroleum bulk storage facility” and as a hauler of “non-hazardous industrial/commercial, hazardous industrial/commercial, and waste oil.”

Mason has also reported that the West Ghent fire company had been unaware that a TCI subcontractor, Power Substation Services incorporated in Florida,“had brought sodium on the site for use in recycling transformer oil.” Mason quoted West Ghent chief James Cesternino as saying “The fire company never received any haz-mat inventories from PSS nor was the sodium ever mentioned to us at our last building tour.”

According to The Columbia Paper, PSS “stored materials within the building” as follows:

• 16 - 55-gallon drums of sodium metal
• 3 cylinders of gas/liquid mix of sodium and oil
• 2 - 150 gallon diesel tanks
• Several nitrogen tanks

Fatalities among firefighters were narrowly averted only because at the last minute, a TCI employee saw first responders “setting up the hose lines and informed [them] that there was sodium in the building and it reacts violently with water. It becomes explosive and produces hydrogen gas.” As firefighter Nathan Chess has written:

“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. This chemical is used as part of alternative treatment of low level PCB (< than 50ppm). But when exposed it creates an exothermic reaction and produces hydrogen gas...”

Dr. Mitchell L. Gaynor, who previously discussed his concerns about the TCI fire based on his extensive expertise in environmental carcinogenesis, has also noted that the material safety guidelines from companies like Sargent Welch recommend that sodium metal be stored in “red storage... away from any strong oxidizers,” for example in a “dedicated flammables cabinet,” in a “cool, dry, well ventilated, locked storeroom away from incompatible materials,” as well as keeping it immersed in mineral oil. 

Gaynor then asks:

“Why would TCI and PSS store a mix of highly explosive chemicals in close proximity in their warehouse, which also contained highly toxic PCBs, which when incinerated at high heat create the most potent carcinogens known to man?

“Chemical storage guidelines from the CDC state that nitrogen and sodium metal are incompatible chemicals and should not be stored nor used near each other as they might cause explosive reactions if mixed. What industrial purpose would be served by storing 16 55-gallon drums of sodium metal near nitrogen tanks, diesel and oil, as was done at the PSS/TCI facility the night of August 1, 2012?

“Given the highly flammable and explosive nature of these chemicals, was West Ghent apprised of this, and what contingency and evacuation plans were in place for the town and surrounding counties?”

All of this again raises questions not just about what TCI (and PSS) had stored on the night of August 1st, but what it had been permitted to store locally, what it had been reporting to various local, County, State and Federal oversight agencies, and what its commitment has been to keeping these materials stored safely.

 

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Taken in both its historical and its recent context, the Crawford inventory of TCI’s storage thus points to at least three central issues for further investigation:

1. Given the Town’s stated expectations in 1986-1989 that “no PCBs”—or at best that only very low concentrations of PCBs—would be present at TCI, how does this square with the current inventory?


2. How does this inventory (and the apparent presence of other substances such as sodium) square with the Town’s 1989 reference to zoning prohibitions against storage of certain types of materials “in any district” of Ghent?


3. What was stipulated, if anything, in any use permit issued to TCI when it was first built, and was that local permit ever modified or enforced? 

Reviews thus far in local records leave vast gaps in even rudimentary permitting information for TCI’s operation.

It is not even clear at this point whether any formal application was submitted in 1986, beyond the company’s brief letter of introduction; or whether any special use or other ordinary permit was issued along with TCI’s building permit; or whether any SEQR (State Environmental Quality Review) process was performed for the facility; or whether any local permit modifications were ever requested, apart from the failed attempt to build an incinerator, for all the other materials brought onsite.

Until such documents come to light—and they may never materialize, much like the company’s untraceable PCBs—concerned observers are left to wonder whether there were major omissions in the process, major misunderstandings, or outright violations that are going uninvestigated.

 

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As has been said before: If any ordinary Columbia County resident took all the cans of paint, turpentine, gasoline, bleach or even ordinary garbage from his or her garage or basement, and burned it in a barrel in the backyards, that ordinary resident almost surely would wind up in trouble.

Likewise, if any of ordinary resident had two big fires in the same year at his or her home, neighbors understandably might begin to wonder about how committed that person was to basic safety.

And if, as a result of a community fighting and cleaning up from fires, that ordinary resident was discovered to be to storing unexpectedly large quantities of unusual equipment and fuel—let alone PCB wastes—someone surely would ask to see that person’s papers. 

Yet to date, no public mention has been made of any potential fines or enforcement actions against TCI by local, County, State or Federal agencies. And there is little paper trail to explain how these activities and storage came to be accepted in the context of the Town of Ghent’s zoning code.

If there are good answers, it’s incumbent upon elected and appointed officials, as well as the company—which still has not responded after several weeks to this site’s request for an interview—to take the lead in providing them.

A tale of two fire companies

 

Before TCI moved to Ghent, it was known variously as Trans-Cycle Industries and TCI Incorporated. Documents from the early 1980s show the company was dogged by residents reporting fires at and emissions from its Newburgh location. The company initially tried to move to Athens (NY), but ran into a buzzsaw of community opposition.

The opposition of Athens’ first responders was particularly instrumental to TCI’s defeat there. The 1980s document above (found in a large archive of legal papers held by a Ghent resident’s attorneys) reveals what the firefighters of the Town and Village of Athens thought about the project. The Athens firefighters opposed it based on their assessment that  that:

• the “hazardous materials” handled by TCI “could pose health hazards during a fire”;


• fighting such a fire would require extensive “public infrastructure”;


• “a fire in this industry has implications for the public health”;


• “an inadequate response” to such a fire could have implications “beyond property damage”;


• these implications could include “the issue of toxic fumes... if a fire cannot be contained satisfactorily”;


• “water used to put out the fire” could be “contaminated” and “run into the ground.”

Abandoning the idea of moving from Newburgh to Athens, TCI set its sights on Ghent, securing permission in 1986-87 from the Town to build a structure on land owned by David Rivenburgh.

No similar objections appear to have been raised, except for the Town Planning Board chair briefly quizzing the company in a short letter about the potential presence of PCBs onsite. The same archive referenced above contains a 1988 letter from TCI of NY President David Laskin to a lawfirm in New York City, which purports to memorialize a visit to TCI by West Ghent fire chief Tom Rivenburg—a different spelling of the name, and no known relation to David:

Here, Laskin claims that Rivenburg said that “I don’t see any problem” with the facility’s arrangements. The letter also claims that “the fire department has been supplied with the same SPCC [Spill Prevention, Control, and Countermeasure] Plan that has been supplied to the DEC and all pertinent Material Safety Data Sheets,” and that this had also been forwarded to the Columbia County Emergency Management office.

The letter further invited “the entire fire department” to tour TCI’s newly-built plant, which Laskins says has “an open-door policy to enable concerned citizens to view our operations.”

Today, multiple reports indicate that the remains of the TCI facility is under 24-hour armed guard while it is being demolished and, the public has been told, remediated of any pollutants. A stormwater plan for the site was recently agreed to by TCI and the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation, but not before almost a foot of rain has fallen on the site since the time of the catastrophic fire.

Death at TCI

Freon 113 molecule

Omitted so far from the media coverage of the TCI of NY inferno this month has been the most disturbing chapter in the company’s 26-year local history: namely, the 1989 death of 21-year-old Ghent resident Lawrence Smith, known as Roger.

Occupational Safety and Health Agency (OSHA) records contain this robotic description of Smith’s death:

“On February 28, 1989, Employee #1 entered an enclosed vessel 11 ft 6 in. long, 6 ft 4 in. wide, and 10 ft high. The container was open on the top. Employee #1 was cleaning the vessel with trichlorotrifluoroethane, Freon 113. He was in the vessel for approximately 15 minutes then left for approximately 15 to 30 minutes. Upon entering the vessel for a second time, Employee #1 became poisoned and collapsed. He had been in the vessel the second time for less than 5 minutes. The vessel had no mechanical ventilation.”

Smith collapsed and died of asphyxiation by freon gas, according to a Times-Union report at the time. A more detailed narrative of the tragedy and OSHA’s evaluation of TCI’s safety procedures can be read here.

Residents who knew Smith claim that a seal on his protective gear was broken. The horrific news hit his family especially hard, with his 46-year-old father also dying two weeks later, of a heart attack two weeks while driving to help fight a fire on Route 66. His teenaged sister also suffered a non-fatal car crash shortly after Smith’s death.

OSHA listed the event as a “fatality” from “poisoning (systemic).”

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Freon 113 “is a colorless, nonflammable liquid” which “does not occur naturally,” and whose production was restricted starting in 1995. The agency states that “Freon 113 enters the body when breathed in with contaminated air or when consumed with contaminated food or water” and “it can also be absorbed through skin contact.”

EPA warns that “breathing large amounts of freon 113 for short periods of time adversely affects the human nervous system,” with effects ranging “from dizziness to incoordination and irregular heart beat.” The agency’s factsheet notes that “The largest users of freon 113 are companies that use the chemical to clean metal surfaces.”

A follow-up piece in the T-U reported that “unsafe conditions existed at [TCI] last February when a worker came in contact with a toxic solvent and died.” Catherine Clabby’s article stated:

“In a four-part citation issued against TCI Inc., the Occupational Safety and Health Administration faults the company generally for failing to provide conditions needed to keep workers safe while working with a hazardous material in a confined space. Specifically it faults the company's respiratory protection program, the means by which it chose respiratory equipment, the absence of a written description of how it educates workers about hazards and a failure to inform workers of the effects of contact with some materials.”

OSHA records indicate that the agency initially fined TCI $3,300 for workplace violations which led to the death. Company president David Laskin told the T-U: “We’re basically surprised about the alleged violations. We certaintly are going to take steps to defend ourselves.” While promising that TCI would “suspend” the use of Freon at its plant, Laskin speculated: “I don't know if it was the mask or a pre-existing condition or what.”

Either way, the company challenged the fines and they were reduced to $2,013. (Those who remember Roger Smith believe that the family eventually made a settlement with TCI was out of court, but this is unconfirmed.)

Remarkably, less than six months after this fatal incident, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) issued the company a go-ahead to conduct a 20-day test burn for a proposed PCB and electronic waste incinerator. The news fired up neighbors and local government, which blocked the plan in spite of DEC’s indulgence of the company. A DEC spokesperson said of the incinerator proposal at the time:

“We feel that at the levels prescribed by TCI, the burn plant poses no significant health risk.”

Today, officials at DEC and the New York State Department of Health are at the forefront of reassuring the public that the massive conflagration at TCI was safe, and no further testing for dioxins should be done.