Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.
Local coke plant violates pollution regulations. Outraged citizens organize and speak up. The state’s environmental protection arm steps in. The coke plant is forced to cease operations. Within a couple of months, air quality surrounding the site of the now-closed plant improves. A community breathes easier.
Sound too good to be true?
It is. At least it has been, here in Erie.
But in Tonawanda, New York, where Erie Coke Corporation’s (ECC) sister site, Tonawanda Coke (TCC), used to operate, it’s recent history.
On July 20, 2018, The Buffalo News reported that the plant was ordered to shut down following a state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) inspection, which “found persistent and repeated violations of the plant’s DEC permit.”
Complaints and pressure from residents who live near the now-closed TCC facility motivated the inspection.
In a statement, DEC Commissioner Basil Seggos said, “In response to repeated violations and ongoing concerns about air pollution, I have demanded that Tonawanda Coke Corporation immediately cease and desist all operations associated with violations at this facility to prevent potential harm to its workers, surrounding community, and the environment and have commenced revocation of the facility’s air permits.”
Tonawanda Coke’s shutdown was completed by the end of last October. By December, The Buffalo News reported the DEC’s findings that “lifetime cancer risk from environmental benzene exposure in neighborhoods around Tonawanda Coke is more than 10 times less now than a decade ago … What’s more, despite a small uptick in benzene releases this year compared to last year, the levels are 92 percent lower since the century-old River Road plant closed in mid-October.”
A couple of years ago, we published a piece that laid out some of the parallels between Tonawanda Coke and Erie Coke, from ownership to management to violations. Clearly, a lot has changed in Tonawanda since then.
But though Erie Coke still operates at the foot of East Ave., a lot has changed here, too.
One example is the formation of the activist group Hold Erie Coke Accountable (HECA), self-defined as “a non-partisan citizen and community initiative, inspired by the civic resolve that Erie’s rise as a leading 21st-century city of choice rides on high quality of life and a healthy environment, requiring that Erie Coke cease violating its air quality emissions permit.”
HECA’s website and Facebook page serve to keep residents informed, and also to provide a forum for sharing concerns and reporting incidents. Most urgently, they encourage the community to report to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) anything “out of the ordinary” coming from ECC, such as colored plumes or odors that are sulfuric or acidic (please see sidebar for contact info).
Citizen reports are especially crucial given the egregious lack of air quality monitors in the area surrounding Erie Coke. The nearest monitor is a mile-and-a-half away. Currently, there’s no way of knowing for sure what residents who live close to the ECC plant — or those at the Barber National Institute, or the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Home — are breathing in daily.
By: Katie Chriest
