Cost versus safety debated at Albany, N.Y. chemical plant location
Greenpeace backs federal proposal for tougher chemical plant safety rules, but an Albany firm — and the chemical industry more generally — fear expense
Environmentalists turned out at a small chemical factory in Albany, New York, Wednesday to push for a proposed federal law that would make such businesses convert to safer chemicals or processes. Surpass Chemical Co. on Bridge Street is among about 6,300 such facilities nationwide rated as “high risk” by DHS for an accident or attack that could unleash dangerous chemicals.
Jarred Cobb, an organizer for Greenpeace, said his group chose Surpass to bring attention to the Chemical Facility Antiterrorism Act of 2009, which is now being considered by Congress.
Current temporary federal chemical security standards will expire in October. Those standards address physical security issues like guards and gates, but not the types of chemicals used (see “Chemical Industry Urges Congress Not to Alter Chemical Facility Security Law,” 16 June 2009 HSNW).
At Surpass, which has been in business in the North Albany industrial area since 1914, chlorine gas is brought in by railroad tanker or truck. It is used to created a variety of products, including water and wastewater treatment chemicals, pool cleaners, cattle dips and X-ray processing.
Chlorine gas is highly toxic, and a leak could endanger thousands of people who work and live around the plant. A federal map of the facility shows that about a half-million people are in a “vulnerability zone” within a 10-mile radius of Surpass.
Cobb and Bobbi Chase Wilding, director of Clean New York, said that Surpass could replace chlorine gas with a safer alternative, although they could not be specific. “What chemicals are not on-site won’t leak or get blown up by terrorists,” Chase Wilding said.
Surpass president Irwin Smith said it could cost his company up to $30 million to change its processing to eliminate the need for chlorine gas. “It is not something that we are prepared to do,” he said.
Four years ago, the company spent $2 million to rebuild the plant with “the safest technology we know,” Smith said.
In 1997 a massive hydrochloric acid spill at Surpass sent a cloud of potentially lethal gas into the neighborhood. Hundreds of people were evacuated from a 10-block area, and 43 were treated at hospitals.
In 2002 eight people who suffered permanent health problems from that incident accepted a $3.35 million settlement from Surpass, which also paid $105,000 in penalties after admitting violations of state and federal environmental regulations.
