Ill wind from New York
If there is no change soon, New Englanders could find one of the five largest cement plants in the country spewing coal exhaust carbon dioxide into the air just 15 miles from the Massachusetts border. The plant will be built unless New York State officials come to realize that a facility like this should not even be considered in a state that is leading a Northeastern coalition to counter global warming. Swiss-based Holcim Ltd. wants to replace a much smaller cement plant in Catskill, N.Y., with a new and somewhat cleaner-burning one near the city of Hudson, N.Y. Its 406-foot smokestack, located on a hill, would be almost 700 feet above sea level, sending emissions from the plant -- including fine particulate matter and other health hazards -- into prevailing wind currents toward New England.
Governor Romney should not be bashful about telling his Republican counterpart in New York, George Pataki, to send Holcim back to the drawing board to see if the plant can work with a cleaner fuel such as natural gas that produces much less CO2. Earlier this year Romney minced no words in telling the owner of a coal-burning power plant in Salem to clean it up quickly or close it. According to the New York plant's critics, it would emit 80 percent as much nitrogen oxide as the Salem plant.
The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection tried to gain status as an intervenor in this case before New York State's Department of Environmental Conservation. New York denied the request, a decision the DEP is appealing. A spokesman for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Environmental Affairs said the state will weigh its options if and when New York approves the plant, and one option would be an appeal to the US Environmental Protection Agency. It is very much in Massachusetts's interest to make its concerns known, since the state is already in violation of federal smog standards, and a continuing failure to meet them could cost the state federal highway funds.
Pataki, to his credit, has joined other Northeastern governors not only in trying to limit greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide but also in insisting that the federal government crack down on coal-burning power plants in the Midwest that befoul the air breathed by New Yorkers and New Englanders.
To be consistent, the New York governor should be just as tough on Holcim, insisting that it clean up its existing plant or build a new one fueled by natural gas. His hands-off approach as the project makes its way through the regulatory system will only increase the owner's upfront investment and make it more difficult politically for the state to do what it should do now: Tell Holcim that in 2003 a new coal-burning plant in the Northeast is a nonstarter.
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