Past Dirty Dozen Awards

2006 | 2005

Previous Years:

Groups Unveil New York's "Dirty Dozen" Polluters

WINNERS INCLUDE COMPANIES, STATE AGENCIES, GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS

On Thursday, April 3rd, community and environmental groups across the state unveiled the "winners" of Citizens' Environmental Coalition's (CEC) First Annual "Dirty Dozen" Polluter Awards to draw attention to the worst pollution and environmental health problems in the state. Citizens organized press conferences in Albany, Syracuse, Rochester, and Buffalo to release the awards.

This year's winners are:

• Cheektowaga Town Board
• Chemical Waste Management
• County Executive Nicholas Pirro and Gov. Pataki
• Diaz Chemical Corporation
• Eastman Kodak
• Environmental Protection Agency Region 2 and NYC Department of Education
• General Electric
• New York Organic Fertilizer Company (NYOFCO)
• Newtown Creek
• NRG Energy, Inc.
• NYS Department of Health
• St. Lawrence Cement Company
  

"While many polluters pose a threat to New York State, this year's winners are particularly notorious for the dangers they pose to the environment and their neighbors," said Bobbi Chase, Associate Director of Citizens' Environmental Coalition. Referring to the award - made from egg cartons containing a dozen misshapen eggs representing each of the 'winners,' she noted, "These are some bad eggs you wouldn't want to find in your Easter Basket."

The Dirty Dozen "winners" were selected based on the severity of the threat they pose and the unwillingness of the polluters and government officials to adequately address the situation. A selection committee evaluated nominations from across the state. It was comprised of environmental professionals, public health experts, and worker health and safety advocates: Dr. David Carpenter, State University at Albany School of Public Health; Laura Haight, New York Public Interest Research Group; David Cutler, New York City Environmental Justice Alliance; Alexandra McPherson, Clean Production Action; Jonathan Bennett, New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health; and Bobbi Chase, Citizens' Environmental Coalition.

See attached list for descriptions of the winners with quotes from each nominating group: dirtydozen.pdf
Requires Adobe Acrobat.

Since 1983, CEC and its diverse network of 110 grassroots community groups and over 14,000 individual members have effectively advocated for industry and government to take action on environmental problems in New York State.

Second Annual Dirty Dozen "Awards" Presnented to NY's Top Polluters

• Village of Tuckahoe – refuses to share documents about protecting residents from contamination in a municipal and industrial landfill in a quarry in the middle of a densely residential community.


• New York Organic Fertilizer Company (Bronx) – handles sewage waste contaminated with heavy metals, dioxins, nitrous oxides and other toxicants in an area plagued by high levels of asthma.


• Eastman Kodak (Rochester) – is New York’s number one manufacturing polluter and one of the nation’s top emitters of cancer-causing chemicals.


• A.N.S.W.E.R.S. Consortium Proposed Landfill (Coeymans) – would cover 363 acres of prime farmland and wetland, is unnecessary and would receive garbage from up to 100 miles away.


• General Electric (Hudson River, Dewey Loeffel Landfill - Nassau) –continues to resist cleaning up the approximately 1.3 million pounds of PCBs in the Hudson River and the PCB contamination spread from the Dewey Loeffel Landfill into Nassau Lake and the Valatie Kill.


• Environmental Protection Agency Regions 1 and 2 (Long Island Sound) – proposed to dump 20 million cubic yards of contaminated dredge materials into Long Island Sound over the next 20 years, which would further devastate local fisheries and water ecology.


• Radiac, Inc. (Brooklyn) – burns chemical and radioactive wastes in a highly populous area with no evacuation plan.


• Lafarge Cement Plant (Ravena) – exemplifies efforts to burn waste tires as a fuel source in cement kilns across the state.  These kilns are ill equipped to handle the toxic materials in tires or the hazardous air pollution released when burned.  Waste tires can be easily recycled.


• Onondaga Creek Sewage Treatment Plant (Syracuse) – wants to expand and dump 77 million gallons of partially treated sewage into Onondaga Creek, a tributary of “the most polluted lake in the U.S.,” Onondaga Lake (a federal Superfund site).


• New York State Department of Transportation – continues to use toxic pesticides to control weeds along highways, despite the option of mechanical (mowing) treatments shown to be successful elsewhere.

Dirty Dozen "Awards" Presented to NY's Top Polluters

In April, 2003, CEC released the top twelve polluters in New York, based on nominations from community groups around the state. This year, the nomination process is currently open. Contact cecbobbi@igc.org

2003 Award "Winners":

Cheeetowaga Town Board
The Cheektowaga Town Board has been nominated for voting unanimously to end a town recycling program. Former recyclables will now be incinerated, increasing air pollution in the area, in particular dioxin emissions. Public scrutiny of Cheektowaga's actions could influence other municipalities who may be considering canceling their recycling programs.

Chemical Waste Management
Chemical Waste Management tops the list of New York's Toxic Release Inventory, and its releases include over 130 pounds of known carcinogens in 2000. It runs the only permitted licensed hazardous waste treatment facility in New York and is located one mile from the entire Lewiston-Porter school district complex. CWM plans to expand their landfill and has been repeatedly fined for violations.

Combined award to EPA Region 2 and Stuyvesant HS for 9/11 cleanup failures
The collapse of the World Trade Center released enormous amounts of dangerous contaminants including asbestos, lead, mercury, fiberglass, PCB's silica, etc. The detrimental effect of these contaminants on public health has been well documented, and these pollutants linger and remain in indoor spaces at dangerous levels. The EPA has been nominated for not having a WTC indoor clean up plan that adequately protects public health. Stuyvesant High School is located four blocks north of Ground Zero and has not been adequately cleaned following 9/11. Against EPA recommendations, upholstered furniture and carpets in the school have not been removed. Carpet was found to have asbestos contamination and the ventilation system was found to have high levels of lead. A study found that 60% of the staff suffered respiratory problems eight months after 9/11. One teacher has been hospitalized and another has died. Students have also been diagnosed with serous health effects. The Department of Education claims the cleanup has been properly conducted and that they are not required to do anything else.

County Executive Nicholas Pirro and Gov. Pataki -- Onandaga Lake
Onondaga Lake is known as "the most polluted lake in the United States" and is on the national priorities list as a Federal Superfund Site. The "Metro" sewage plant discharges 20% of the Lake's water supply, and residential raw sewage also contributes to the pollution. Current clean-up plans have drawn criticism for potentially leaving the lake with too much ammonia and phosphorous to swim or fish in, discharges with chemicals that could impact the ecosystem and human health, and building an above-ground sewage treatment plant rather than an underground storage system.

Diaz Chemical Corporation
Diaz has repeatedly been fined for its violations, and there have been at least 25 spills at the plant since it has opened. In 2002, Diaz released 80 gallons of steam, toluene and 2-chloro-6-fluorophenol, forcing 17 families to evacuate their homes. Ten of these families are still unable to return to their homes. In 2000 alone, Diaz released 5,000 pounds of chemicals into the environment (according to EPA's Toxic Release Inventory).

Eastman Kodak
Kodak is New York's number one manufacturing polluter and releases more dioxins and furans to the environment than any other company in New York. It releases over 2 million pounds of cancer-causing chemicals, making it one of the largest emitters of carcinogens in the nation. According to the DOH, women living near Kodak Park had approximately an 80% greater risk of developing pancreatic cancer; this number jumps to 96% if the women have lived in the area for over 20 years. Additionally, there appears to be a higher than normal rate of childhood brain and spinal cord cancers, and 21 schools are located within three miles of the Kodak facility. Kodak has been fined millions of dollars over the years for chemical spills and explosions to illegally operating hazardous waste incinerators.

General Electric
The 200 mile segment of the Hudson River designated as a Federal Superfund site has won the dirty dozen award for the persistent, detrimental impact PCBs have on the environment and public health. General Electric dumped approximately 1.3 million pounds of PCBs into the Hudson. Two of General Electric's plant sites are heavily contaminated and continue to release "fresh" PCBs into the Hudson River. The GE and Black & Decker site was nominated for PCB contamination. The site has been remediated, but an unknown source of PCBs continually recontaminates the site. Additionally, a PCB laden pipe runs through residential yards. Dewey Loeffel Landfill, a class 2 Superfund site, was the recipient of approximately 37,000 tons of PCBs, heavy metals, and other toxic wastes at the site during the 1950s and 1960s -more than twice the amount dumped at Love Canal. Testing has revealed Volatile Organic Compounds in residents' private wells and PCB contamination in the Valatie Kill and Nassau Lake. Contamination from this site effects approximately 500 families, and a push pin map showing health impacts is located in Nassau's Town Hall.

New York Organic Fertilizer Company (NYOFCO)
NYOFCO has the capacity to handle up to 70% of New York City's sewage sludge, an unknown mixture of residential and industrial sewage. The sludge is dried, formed into pellets, marketed as fertilizer and sold across the country for all types of uses, including agricultural. The plant has one central emissions stack, and stack tests revealed the presence of VOCs, SVOCs, Dioxins, heavy metals, Nitrous Oxides, and particulate matter. Noxious odors escape from the plant and cover an area of roughly a 2-mile radius. The plant is located in a neighborhood where 30% of the children suffer from asthma.

Newton Creek
Newtown Creek flows between Queens and Brooklyn, and is classified as "precluded" for aquatic life. There are dozens of unremediated toxic pollution sites, 12 waste transfer stations and a radioactive storage facility on Newtown's banks. Since the 1950s, a steady stream of oil has been leaking into the creek from an Exxon/Mobil 17 million-gallon underground spill. The Newtown Creek Sewage Treatment Plant and 17 combined sewer overflow pipes contaminate the creek with sewage. The Phelps Dodge Superfund site has resulted in PCBs, heavy metal sediments and toxic silt in the creek. Other sources of pollution include a cement plant, auto shredder and piles of trash and junk.

NRG Energy, Inc.
NRG Energy Inc. owns the Huntley, Dunkirk, Oswego, Ilion, Arthur Kill, and Astoria electrical generation facilities. Two of these facilities are among the top five polluters in the state. The NY plants emitted an estimated 7.6 million tons of carbon dioxide, over 34,000 tons of nitrogen oxides, and almost 48,000 tons of sulfur dioxides through the third quarter of 2002. Two of NRG's plants, Huntley and Dunkirk, are responsible for 38 percent of sulfur dioxide emissions and 20 percent of nitrogen oxide emissions in NYS.

NYS Department of Health
The NYS Department of Health was nominated for refusing to share cancer incidence and mortality data with residents in the state and for allowing New Yorkers to be exposed to increased hazardous and carcinogenic substances through "Minor Source Permits." Residents in St. Lawrence County requested zip code data for cancer incidence and mortality data for the county and were denied. St. Lawrence County is ranked in the top ten percent of the nation for "All Cancers: White Females, 1970-1994." The NYDOH refused to become involved in addressing health issues related to several hundred pounds of pollution that will be emitted from Chatham Forest Products. The majority of Chatham's emissions are known respiratory toxicants, and St. Lawrence County has significantly high respiratory related cancer incidence and mortality rates.

St. Lawrence Cement Company
St. Lawrence Cement operates a cement factory in Catskill that is grandfathered under the Clean Air Act. It operates outdated pollution control technology and emits 14 million pounds per year of regulated pollutants -- including nitrogen oxides (NOx), carbon monoxide (CO), sulfur dioxide (SOx), particulate matter (PM), and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). St. Lawrence is proposing to build a new facility that would produce 3.5 times more cement per year. They are seeking permits for emissions of up to 20 million pounds of regulated pollutants -a 43% increase over its current baseline levels. Additionally, the new facility would be within a half-mile of the City of Hudson water supply, a mile of Columbia Memorial Hospital, and within two miles of the local elementary, middle and high schools, health care facilities, retirement homes and the densest residential neighborhoods in the County.