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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.

 

A Tale of Two Cases

 

New Lebanon Town Justice Jessica Byrne-York (Source: GCN News)

Last week, Columbia County District Attorney Paul Czajka drew applause from pro-gun quarters for declining to prosecute the first man arrested under New York’s new SAFE Act.

Gregory Dean of Hopewell Junction had faced charges for having nine bullets in his .40-caliber pistol, two more than the new legal limit of seven. Published reports gave no indication of any objection from Town Justice Jessica Byrne-York to Czajka’s exercise of prosecutorial discretion.

Meanwhile, less than an hour to the north, an Albany judge took a very different view of another exercise of such discretion. Assistant District Attorney David Rossi declined to call witnesses against members of the Occupy movement who had camped last summer in a local park.

But the judge in that case, William Carter, did not look so impassively on Rossi’s decision as Byrne-York did on Czajka’s. Instead, Judge Carter warned the Assistant D.A. that he could be charged with contempt of court. (Note that Rossi was understood to be carrying out the wishes of his boss, the progressive Albany County D.A. David Soares, who has refused to prosecute other trespassing cases against Occupy.)

Why the difference in handling? No doubt some legal expert can find some way in which the two situations are “distinguishable,” and don’t present a contradiction. But to a layperson, the principle in play appears to be the same: Does a prosecutor have the right not to press a case following an arrest—whether for ideological, budgetary or other reasons?

In these two cases, it looks a lot like the difference in judicial approach has less to do with differing interpretations of the law, and more to do with either politics or control, or both.

In the gun case, one suspects that the New Lebanon Town Justice shared Czajka’s position on the SAFE Act, and thus did not view the D.A.’s exercise of discretion through a hostile lens. (Byrne-York was in the news early last year after recusing herself from the case of 28 teenagers found drinking at the home of Republican Town Supervisor Michael Benson.) In the Albany case, there is no obvious evidence of any hostility to the Occupy movement from Carter. But the Judge may view the repeat declinations by the D.A.’s office as a threat to his authority.

For Czajka, the issue of prosecutorial discretion is also not a new one. In December, Judge Jonathan Nichols (another Republican, though one generally considered moderate) sided with the Columbia D.A. in his dispute with Kinderhook Justice David Dellehunt, ruling (per The Columbia Paper) that “unfettered discretion to determine whether or not to prosecute an individual and the Courts may not and should not interfere with that discretion.”

UPDATE: A reader points to this editorial a couple days ago in The Albsny Times-Union, which raises the same disconnect between the two cases, and posits another explanation. The paper alleges that Judge Carter has a close affiliation with a candidate that was beaten out by Soares for the D.A. slot, and who still bears him some animosity.

Predictable

There’s a curious letter in today’s Register-Star from Pierre Gontier, the former chair of the Columbia County Environmental Management Council (EMC). The letter praises Hilary Hawke for her reporting on the Harvard study of mercury levels among residents downwind of Lafarge.

Gontier coyly avoids saying what exactly he likes about the substance of the article, except that he found it more balanced, somehow, than other reports. But it’s not hard to guess what he’s driving at... Unlike most other articles on the topic, Hawke’s report for the Register repeatedly focuses on the notion that the Harvard report was “inconclusive.”

Other papers, such as the The Albany Times-Union, came away from the Harvard presentation with a very different impression: that the report had indeed found elevated mercury levels among residents of Ravena, which plays host to the Lafarge plant. By contrast with the Register’s insistent focus on doubts (which so delighted Gontier), the T-U’s headline and subhead read:

Town sees mercury spike

Blood, hair samples of people who live near the Lafarge plant raise health, safety concerns

Naturally, credible scientific researchers will always be careful to note that there are uncertainties in any topic of study more controversial than whether the earth orbits the sun. As such, the Harvard researchers clearly suggested that these elevated mercury levels have been pinpointed, more study to identify the source(s) should be done. Whether the culprit is the Lafarge stack—already acknowledged as one of the largest industrial emitters of mercury in all of New York State—is something that folks like Gontier probably would rather not find out.

Now, given his history of cheerleading for the cement industry in our area, Gontier’s praise for the Register’s preferred spin isn’t terribly surprising. During his tenure as EMC chair, the volunteer committee rarely met, and was made up almost entirely of representatives unlikely to question industry.

Gontier got himself in a bit of a tangle during the SLC review, when he sent a letter on Management Council stationery to Administrative Law Judge Helene Goldberger, endorsing the Greenport project in terms lifted pretty much verbatim from the company's own literature. Among his more absurd reasons for supporting the project? Because he was glad that the location would not result in a loss of "greenspace," even though the mining plan would result in turning hundreds of forested acres into vast, open pits.

But more than the absurdity of Gontier's arguments or the lack of originality in his wording, the main problem was that he'd never actually had the EMC research or vote upon taking a position on the project prior to sending his endorsement to the Judge. Indeed, during the course of the nearly seven-year controversy, the three dozen groups challenging the project were never invited by Gontier to present their research (which ultimately was ratified by State officials) to him or the EMC as a group.

When the provenance of this letter was then challenged in 2001, SLC’s attorney's hurriedly relayed a statement from Gontier to the Judge, saying that this endorsement was his own opinion, not that of the EMC—though without ever acknowledging the sleight-of-hand of submitting such puffery on official letterhead. (He was not heard from again in the remainder of the process, which lasted into 2005.)

On a slightly happier note, the EMC has become relatively more active and balanced since Gontier’s departure, for example issuing a 2009 report expressing concern about the increased use of outdoor wood boilers for heating.