Activists and Mayor Mike Stammel are up in arms over a New Jersey-based waste company's plan to build a sludge incinerator in the city of Rensselaer.
Environmentalists turned out Saturday along the banks of the Hudson River to express opposition to the Harbor Rock incinerator project proposed for Rensselaer.
Harbor Rock engages in navigational dredging and plans to spend upwards of $100 million to set up a kiln that would burn river sediment, turning it into aggregate material to be sold to construction companies, similar to what the Norlite plant in Cohoes did for decades.
The city of about 9,000 has already been in a protracted battle to close the Dunn landfill, which sits adjacent to city schools.
Fearing Harbor Rock will import toxic sludge from downstate waters, Bennington College faculty member, former EPA Regional Administrator, and President of Beyond Plastics Judith Enck vows to keep the company from gaining a foothold anywhere in the Capital Region.
“All of us collectively have spent decades cleaning up this historic river, and just to our south is the old BASF chemical facility, which is highly contaminated," said Enck. "As a former federal regulator, I know that so many of these polluting facilities get concentrated in particular communities, and it is appalling, appalling that this company wants to build a sludge or sediment incinerator here in the city of Rensselaer, on the BASF property that still has not been cleaned up.”
Enck says Harbor Rock's claim that incinerating dredged material will destroy any toxic chemicals in the sediment is without merit.
Harbor Rock did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
City resident Jessica Welshans says she and her neighbors are "tired of Rensselaer being the Northeast dumping ground."
"We are tired of pollution driving our local economy. Rensselaer is three square miles in size, but is currently home to a fracked gas power station, an asphalt plant, the former BASF plant, which is a toxic Superfund site. Our city is split by Interstate 90, and we are home to the largest construction and demolition landfill in the Northeast United States, the Dunn landfill," Welshans said.
Republican Mayor Stammel says he spoke with company officials in June, but there was no follow-up.
“And then all of a sudden I see an article in the Times Union newspaper telling me that, ‘hey, we're up and coming, and we're on our way to move to the Port of Rensselaer.’ Well, that's not going to happen here," Stammel said, "and I want you to know that that just tells me how dishonest and disingenuous they are when they promise that they're going to provide you information that's going to justify their existence, and then they ignore you, and then throw something out to the newspaper and it says that they're going to be the next savior over here, providing jobs and opportunities and businesses to the city of Rensselaer, Rensselaer County, that's that just tells me something that none of us wanted, that they're just disingenuous and I'm not going to work with people that I can't trust.”
18-year old Salma Hafeez of Queens is an RPI student.
“It's a residential neighborhood, there's a lot of pollutants, not only just in the water and in the air, but it's incompassionate of these big corporations just coming into these neighborhoods because it's cheap and they do not care, and they just continue to keep getting away with their actions," Hafeez said.
Enck says Harbor Rock hasn't made any effort to meet with residents. Again, Welshans: "We want to keep Rensselaer a great place to live and visit and raise a family, instead of a home for polluters taking advantage of a low-income community with a long history of environmental injustice.”
Residents say they plan to speak out at a Common Council public hearing November 20th.
