Citizens mobilized to take on polluting New York coke plant
The U.S. Justice Department, Environmental Protection Agency and New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation were all quick to issue press statements applauding the $24 million fine a federal judge imposed on Tonawanda Coke Corp. in March for the egregious violations of the Clean Air Act that the criminal charges they had brought against the company were based on.
But it was a group of citizens from the western New York town who cracked the case.
And in doing so, they provided an instructional moment for residents living 200 miles south in and around Pittsburgh, most of whom feel powerless to solve major environmental problems.
Nearly 79 percent of residents in the Pittsburgh Metropolitan Statistical Area believe they can do little or nothing to solve the region’s environmental challenges, according to the Pittsburgh Regional Environment Survey conducted last year by Pittsburgh Today and the University of Pittsburgh University Center for Social and Urban Research.
The survey also suggests that the level of pessimism transcends geographic boundaries, and that senior citizens and young adults are the least likely to feel they can bring about solutions.
Residents of the Town of Tonawanda felt otherwise seven years ago when they began meeting informally, sharing health concerns, stories of illness and suspicions that the nearby coke plant might have something to do with them.
Unlike Allegheny County, the local health department there has no air quality program. The state handled inspections and air monitoring in Tonawanda. There were no daily, boots-on-the-ground inspections of coke plants, as there are in Allegheny County, and only one air quality monitor.
Tonawanda residents sought expertise and guidance of local universities and environmental nonprofits. They organized. They learned to make basic air quality monitors from materials bought at Home Depot and formed “bucket brigades” to sample the air themselves.
What they found alarmed them: A host of dangerous air toxins at high levels, including benzene, carbon tetrachloride and formaldehyde. They took their findings to state regulators and made them public. When the state did its own study, regulators found benzene levels 75 times higher than health-based limits and determined the coke plant to be the chief source of the carcinogen.
“We tried to get the plant owner to negotiate with the community on a collaborative plan to reduce benzene emissions, but he didn’t respond,” says Erin Heaney, director of the Clean Air Coalition of Western New York, the nonprofit started by local residents. “It was at that point that we shifted strategies to putting pressure on regulators to enforce the laws that are on the books.”
The campaign included canvassing neighborhoods, approaching news media and reaching out to public officials. Town and county governments passed resolutions calling on the plant to reduce its benzene emissions, and the group recruited the support of New York’s two U.S. senators.
More than 50 federal and state agents raided the Tonawanda Coke plant in December 2009. “To be honest, I wasn’t personally aware of the problems until it was brought to my attention by a local citizen’s group,” Judith Enck, the EPA Region 2 administrator, said after the raid.
Agents discovered, among other things, that the plant released coke oven gas containing benzene into the air during normal operations through an unreported pressure release valve. They also learned that the plant’s environmental control officer ordered employees to conceal the problem.
He was convicted of violating the Clean Air Act and obstruction of justice charges and sentenced to a year in federal prison in March. And the fine against the coke plant was one of the largest levied in a criminal trial involving air pollution.
Half of the fine was set aside to pay for community projects, including an epidemiological study and an air and soil study. More important to the health of Tonawanda residents, benzene levels fell by as much as 86 percent following the enforcement actions taken at the plant.
This is the last installment in a three-part series. Go here to read the previous installments.