October 20, 2009

TOWN OF TONAWANDA: Coke plant owner goes on record with Tonawanda News

By Daniel Pye<br><a href="mailto:pyed@gnnewspaper.com">E-mail Dan</a>

For years, J.D. Crane has let everyone else do the talking.

But now, the owner of the Tonawanda Coke factory — a facility at the center of a controversy concerning serious, some say deadly air pollution — granted his first interview to the Tonawanda News.

When asked why it has taken him so long to answer his critics, Crane made it clear that he isn’t interested in going back and forth on television or in the newspaper.

“We don’t try our case in the media,” he said.

That stance has led to a one-sided debate ever since results from the Department of Environmental Conservation’s year-long air monitoring study came back showing heavy benzene emissions were coming from the area around Crane’s Tonawanda Coke factory.

For a band of residents in the surrounding neighborhood, the study was proof that their suffering — and cancer rates that exceed the norm — are Crane’s fault. Jackie James-Creedon, founder of the Clean Air Coalition of Western New York, has invited Crane to several group meetings to discuss those claims and work toward reducing benzene.

Crane has declined to give his side of the story — until now.

Making his case

Crane said just because he hasn’t talked publicly until now doesn’t mean he hasn’t been working with the DEC to address complaints about his factory’s emissions.

The company reports just less than 10,000 pounds of benzene sent into the air each year, which is the limit set for the plant by the government.

But Crane said that number is not based on any real measurements. Instead, the emissions numbers are based on historical data of how much comes off the smoke stacks — roughly half of the total — and other areas of the plant, such as the light oil storage tank and the ammonia still.

There is no method in place to track the real amount of the cancer-causing chemical being released. Instead, employees at the factory estimate how much should be emitted based on how much coke they produce and give that data to the government.

“We have to report that by formula,” Crane said.

A certain amount of material yields a certain amount of byproducts and that mathematical number is what the company’s air permit is based upon. Starting with the 10,000-pound figure, Crane said approximately 1,500 pounds of benzene come from the company’s light oil operation. Light oil, a byproduct of the coke-making process, contains high levels of benzene. Before the storage tanks were placed under pressure, the fumes would vent into the atmosphere. But since the DEC approached him near the beginning of the air study and asked that he burn those fumes in a boiler rather than release them, Crane said that emission has been eliminated.

“Our storage tanks are under pressure. They’re not vented,” Crane said.

Larry Sitzman, one of the DEC air quality engineers handling the site, agrees that the improvement has taken the 1,500 pounds of benzene out of the air and put it back in the coke-making process. And Crane said the improvements didn’t end there.

During the coking process, which turns coal into the purer coke used to make steel, a substance called ammonia liquor is also produced. Before that liquid can go into the town’s waste water system, it has to go into the company’s ammonia still to extract a certain percentage of the chemicals inside. It’s that substance and storage method that the DEC contends caused the illness complaints that started in August 2008, and Crane makes no denial that fumes from the ammonia liquor were venting out.

“We were allowing that to go into the air, and we always did it,” Crane said.

Even that admission, however, doesn’t necessarily correlate to the increased complaints from area residents, he says.

It was around the same time that James-Creedon’s group was being formed. Crane questions whether residents just had a better mechanism for delivering complaints to the DEC — a possibility the agency doesn’t deny. What the DEC can say is written complaints poured in during the late winter of 2008-2009, and an investigation followed.

“A lot of those complaints were irritant complaints, that people's throats and eyes were burning,” said DEC Environmental Engineer Cheryl Webster.

The DEC has always known ammonia was present at Tonawanda Coke, which releases approximately 800,000 pounds of the substance a year, according to filings with both the DEC and EPA. But it doesn’t smell like regular ammonia when it’s coming from the coke facility; it smells like coke oven gas because of other things mixed into it. Since those complaints were received, the coke facility has installed new controls to keep the ammonia in the process as a fuel, thus keeping it out of the air.

When everything is complete, Crane contends another 3,700 pounds will be taken off the facility’s total benzene emissions.

How much does the facility emit?

That leaves approximately 5,000 pounds of benzene coming out of the company’s stacks by the EPA’s estimates. But Crane said he by no means agrees with the estimate.

“It’s a book number,” Crane said. “Are we better than that? The answer is absolutely.”

In fact, no one in the debate believes that number to be accurate. But whether it’s higher or lower depends on who you ask. The CAC contends Crane’s plant emits far more than it reports and wants proof of these latest changes above Sitzman’s verbal assurances. When James-Creedon was told of the ammonia reduction plan earlier this year, she was angry with Sitzman and the DEC for negotiating with Crane without consulting the community.

She’s still skeptical and points to a history of problems Crane-owned facilities have had with pollution.

Crane bought a Detroit coke plant in 1980, operating it for 11 years despite various controversies related to air pollution and groundwater contamination. In 1991, after Detroit Coke went bankrupt and ceased operation, the contaminated property became a ward of the state through tax foreclosure.

“Why are we supposed to take his word for this now, given his record in Detroit and other places?” James-Creedon asked.

The constant questioning has fueled media reports, which have in turn fueled more debate. Tom Gentile, who heads the air toxins section of the DEC’s Division of Air Resources in Albany, cited recent media reports he says were misleading. Air monitors placed in the area surrounding the plant found levels of benzene 75 times higher than recommended levels. Contrary to the reports, however, Gentile notes that figure is an aggregate of the entire region, an industrial corridor that is home to 52 air pollution-permitted facilities.

Gentile is careful to note that Tonawanda Coke is not the sole contributor to that eye-popping number.

“The measurements we took at Grand Island Boulevard was 75 times higher,” Gentile said. “Is that all attributable to Tonawanda Coke? No.”

Vehicles idling at the Grand Island toll booths, gas stations and the other 51 air-permitted facilities in the area also contribute to that figure. So while Tonawanda Coke produces a large portion of the benzene, it is by no means the sole culprit, the DEC says.

Gentile also said the guideline, which sets a goal of reducing cancers related to benzene to one person in 1 million is a tall order. As far as the EPA is concerned, the risk for an area has to be at 100 cases in 1 million before it becomes unacceptable. The local benzene levels provide for an estimated cancer rate of 75 in 1 million, but that’s counting every car, fuel pump and industrial plant in the region.

Tonawanda Coke isn’t the only facility that has endured scrutiny. The DEC did complete inspections of the nearby NOCO and Sunoco tanks since gasoline is another large source of benzene. The agency found that Sunoco runs the vapors that come off their tanks through activated carbon, pulling the product back into the system as a cost-saving measure. While NOCO has no such system in place, the emissions measured from the company’s tanks were negligible, Sitzman said.

“There is still benzene unaccounted for coming from some place,” he said.

Lingering odors, questions

Residents don’t need a scientist to tell them something’s wrong. Indeed even a simple drive up the 190 or River Road can make for an awful olfactory experience some days.

Those who live there say it gets even worse at night.

It is a question Tonawanda residents often pose, and has led to speculation that Crane’s coke facility waits to release its worst byproducts under cloak of night to make it less obvious when they’re polluting more than allowed.

Crane contends that doesn’t make any sense. Making coke takes approximately 30 hours, and the facility’s 60 ovens work on a regular schedule to keep the product coming out of the machines at regular intervals. The facility operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week without exception. Crane says pushing the coke earlier than they should is the only thing workers could do that would create more emissions at any given time of day, but the product they’d create by doing that would be inferior and less valuable. And if the batteries themselves weren’t functioning properly — the only other reason emissions would be greater than normal — the coke would burn up rather than dry out, leaving the company without its product.

“It doesn’t cost a company anything to insist on that,” Crane said of keeping emissions bottled up. “It costs something if they don’t.”

Both Sitzman and Webster said whenever they’ve inspected the site, the battery itself is tightly sealed and not leaking.

“They’re always well below (their limit),” Webster said of the coke oven emissions.

But Sitzman said while the facility is on a regular schedule, the plant’s employees could time their pushes to release more gases in the middle of the night. If they did, that would also mean making a different, smaller variety of coke.

“We found no evidence that they make the type of coke that they could get out quicker,” Sitzman said.

For the people living around Tonawanda Coke, who are receiving cancer diagnoses and hearing that their neighbors are getting the same, that news comes as little consolation. But Crane said while he sympathizes with people who have serious illnesses, he doesn’t believe it’s his plant that’s responsible.

“I’ve been around coke plants all my life. I have 125 people here who all work 40 hours a week and hardly any of them fall over,” Crane said. “We’re all at least as healthy as any average person out there. We don’t want them exposed to anything that is bad for them.”

While working near the battery, employees wear respirators to protect their lungs from the extreme heat coming out of the ovens. Residents argue that they don’t have that equipment at home, but Crane said the emissions come out of a 200 foot stack and that they don’t pose a risk.

When asked why he doesn’t go to the CAC and tell people that, Crane said no matter what he says, he doubts anyone will listen.

“I can’t argue that somebody isn’t sick. Then they ask ‘what are you going to do about all these sick people?’ They want to look at something as being the cause of it,” he said.

Erin Heaney, the CAC’s executive director, said Crane owes it to the community to discuss his plant’s role in contributing to the area’s poor air quality. She added that it’s not just the vocal minority that is affected.

“For every one person screaming, there’s a whole block of people who are silently suffering,” Heaney said.

But James-Creedon, the air coalition’s founder, said the group doesn’t expect Crane to show up and simply serve as a punching bag for a hoard of angry residents. Rather, she wants to have a few people from her group sit down with Crane to compare notes, talk strategy and come to conclusions that can benefit the community.

She said 3M sat down with the group and worked in a very professional manner to reduce carbon disulfide emissions.

“I consider 3M a good neighbor,” she said.

And the CAC’s members aren’t just irate that Crane won’t meet with them. He has also declined meetings with various politicians. Heaney notes that whatever reservations Crane might have about a meeting with angry residents doesn’t wash when it comes to elected officials.

“His attempt to portray us as the crazy mob is not going to get him off the hook for meeting with politicians,” Heaney said.

Tomorrow’s Tonawanda News will examine Crane’s relations with local elected officials.

Considering a health study

In hope of putting a finer point on just how severe the situation is, in regards to cancer diagnoses, locals gathered at a Department of Health meeting in June. Aura Weinstein, director of the DOH cancer surveillance program, spoke at the program.

Taking a step back, Weinstein said a larger study done in 2001 on the radioactive Linde site, which sits less than a mile from Tonawanda Coke, found high rates of cancer in both males and females, some types of which are associated with exposure to radiation. A smaller study done three years later on an area downwind of Tonawanda Coke also found various cancers in excess, but not those types most often caused by radiation exposure.

“When taken as a whole, we didn’t find anything to link these cancers with Linde,” Weinstein said.

No concrete actions were taken after that study was completed. Now, residents are saying their cancers were caused by Tonawanda Coke. Since the DEC results came back, the DOH has hosted a public meeting and several public availability sessions to get information on the specific concerns of the community. They’re also looking closely at the DEC’s modeling.

“Right now we’re still in the (process of) figuring out whether the study is useful,” Weinstein said.

But again, Weinstein cautions that there are myriad causes of cancer to be taken into consideration, not the least of which are lifestyle, diet and heredity. Cancer rates among the national population, regardless of where people live, are also higher now than they once were. Weinstein said estimates show one in three women and almost one in two men will develop some type of cancer in their lifetime.

Leukemia, the cancer most commonly caused by benzene exposure, is also caused by ionizing radiation, further complicating finding the source in such a heavily polluted area as the town’s industrial corridor. So when it comes to finding a specific place to point the finger, Weinstein said a health study isn’t a very useful tool.

“Normally we can’t determine why a certain type of cancer might be high,” she said.

Even so, she contends that a study can still be valuable. Jeffrey Hammond, a DOH spokesman, said it’s important to educate the public about the strengths and weaknesses of such a study. Regardless of whether the study gives residents someone to blame, it may be able to help them make more informed decisions about treatment. If an area has an unusually high incidence of a certain type of cancer, the DOH can put together an intervention program or support early detection efforts to find the disease when it’s still curable.

“If we know there’s something wrong we can deal with it,” Weinstein said. “We don’t have to wait for people to get sick.”

Higher appeals

Despite the fact that they firmly believe Tonawanda Coke is to blame for the area’s heightened cancer rates, the CAC agrees that waiting for more people to get sick isn’t an option.

To that end, they’ve requested a comprehensive benzene reduction plan to be drafted for the facility by the DEC. But Sitzman said that request is impossible until the results of the EPA and DEC testing are finalized. The problem at the site is the main benzene emission points are in compliance as far as anyone can tell. Looking for other leaks — in places where the plant isn’t permitted to emit — is the goal of those further tests.

“If I knew all the sources, I could easily write a plan,” Sitzman said.

If other plant areas releasing pollution into the air are located, Sitzman said there are two options. Crane can work with the DEC to get the reductions the community wants, or new regulations can be written. Webster, the DEC engineer, said the first option is the best, since it will take a lot of time and will-power to create a new regulation, particularly since Tonawanda Coke is the only coke oven in the entire state, making it a somewhat lower priority.

“It would take 18 months to pass a new regulation, optimistically,” Sitzman said.

Crane said he has cooperated fully with everything the DEC has asked of him, and will continue to do so. He openly admits there are no guarantees that there won’t be an “upset,” although the goal is to have as few as possible every year. As far as Crane is concerned, there’s little more he can do to increase efficiency short of shutting down the plant altogether.

“We want to be clean, have a nice clean operation,” Crane said.

Fed up with not getting the response they want from local officials, James-Creedon and Heaney will meet today with Gentile and members of the DEC’s commissioner’s office to discuss ramping up enforcement. The trip to Albany continues Wednesday, when they’ll meet with representatives from Gov. David Paterson’s office. And that is just the start for the pair, who have plans to meet with EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson in Washington D.C. as soon as Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand can arrange it. James-Creedon said she has been getting mixed signals from the DEC and EPA as to who should be cracking down on Tonawanda Coke.

“I consider this a big step, because we’re up with the decision makers, the people in Albany who can make the decisions to enforce,” James-Creedon said.

“We’re going right to the top,” Heaney elaborated. “That means enforcement is going to happen and going to happen soon, hopefully.”

Gentile’s not so sure. While everyone wants to move the process along as fast as possible, he said the studies must be finished. Until they’re done, he’s not sure what a trip to Albany, Washington or anywhere else will accomplish. But, optimistic as always, he’s looking forward to finding out.

Crane is optimistic as well, albeit in a somewhat different direction. He said his company welcomes inspectors and is confident that the data they return will prove him to be in full compliance with the government’s rules. Crane is hopeful that will quell some of the general unrest surrounding the plant, allowing him and his employees to get back to the business at hand without worrying about their image.

“Nobody likes being pointed out as a culprit, especially when you’re not,” Crane said.