Burning questions

The Norlite plant in Cohoes has not been a good neighbor, and the state Department of Environmental Conservation has not been a good watchdog — as much as both claim otherwise.

That has left Cohoes and other neighboring communities, especially the adjacent Saratoga Sites public housing complex, to fend for themselves with everything from a ban on one of the toxic chemicals the site handled to a court claim over dust emissions.

The DEC has a chance to do better. The agency has decided to consider Norlite’s permit renewal request as if it were a new permit, a process that allows an expanded role for public input. But more than that, DEC has the opportunity — and, we would argue, the responsibility — to more explicitly tailor what’s allowed at Norlite’s 250-acre facility on Route

32.

There, the company and its 70 employees employ a hazardous waste incinerator to produce construction materials, known as aggregate, using shale rock from its on-site quarry. If that sounds like a situation ripe for environmental risk, then you’d understand why we question the obtuseness of Jeff Beswick, CEO of Tradebe USA, Norlite’s parent company.

“Our facility and our operation do not pose a risk to the community,” Beswick said as he painted the nearby residents’ plans for court action as “victimization theater.”

Yet, here are some incidents from just the past decade of operations at Norlite, which has been operating in Cohoes since 1956:

In 2010, the DEC fined Norlite’s former owners $90,000 for more than 62 pollution violations in 2008 and 2009. The agency required the facility to rebuild its kilns and that a DEC environmental inspector be kept on-site.

In 2012, DEC investigators found Norlite had violated a 2007 pollution permit by not updating a “best management practice” plan on plant operations and its plan for managing dust. DEC also found inconsistent inspection reports for storing hazardous waste in the plant’s fuel farm.

In 2014, Norlite was hit with a nearly $30,000 DEC fine for environmental violations, including a pungent chemical release the previous summer.

In 2016, the state — which allows Norlite to emit up to 58.9 pounds of mercury per year — found mercury levels in plant waste up to 1,000 times greater than state water quality standards allowed for rivers and lakes. Norlite also paid a $17,500 fine for three unrelated violations related to its pollution control equipment.

And just months ago, DEC issued six violations of air quality requirements that are in place to prevent dust from leaving the site.

These violations should never have occurred, certainly not to the magnitude they did. Yet, Beswick maintains that Norlite’s technologies “result in emissions that are orders of magnitude below regulatory limits.”

Except when something happens. We are glad to see DEC playing a more aggressive role in policing the company’s practices. Te agency must make the most of this permit process to make Norlite a better neighbor.