Sludge Watch ==> When an ill-wind blows from Synagro sludge dryer-Bronx NY

[Maureen Reilly]

Sludgewatch Admin:



Thanks Elena....

...............................................

Hunts Point
For Odors Unpleasant, Inspiration From Wall Street

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By JENNIFER BLEYER
Published: August 13, 2006

When it's especially hot out, or the wind is blowing in a certain direction,
Silkia Martinez refuses to eat outside in her Hunts Point neighborhood. The
odor from the New York Organic Fertilizer Company's plant, she said, might make
her gag.

"It's plain old nasty," said Ms. Martinez, a freshman at the Interboro Institute
and the mother of a 6-year-old girl. "It's as bad as when you pass a horse
stable."

The plant, which is part of Synagro Technologies, a Houston company, converts
much of the city's sludge into fertilizer pellets, but many residents say it
also produces an intolerable stench. They have made those complaints since the
plant, which is between the Bruckner Expressway and the East River, opened in
1992.

Now critics have taken a new tack in their 14-year battle. In 2004, a consortium
of nonprofit organizations, including an environmental advocacy group called
Sustainable South Bronx, bought 1,750 shares of Synagro stock for about $2.50 a
share - a token holding, but enough for a shareholder vote in the company. Since
then, the critics have discovered that investors can have clout.

In December, for example, they proposed a shareholder resolution requesting that
Synagro report how many toxins, molds, pathogens and other substances are
released from the plant, and how those pollutants affect local health and
safety. In May, at the annual shareholder meeting in Houston, the resolution
garnered 31 percent of the vote - more than enough to hold management's
attention.

"We were thrilled," said Elena Conte, a coordinator at Sustainable South Bronx.

This is not the first time critics of the plant have sought creative solutions
to their problems. Last spring, for example, a teacher and students at St.
Athanasius School, a Catholic school on Southern Boulevard half a mile from the
plant, printed about 400 "Smelly Calendars" on which neighbors could down
particularly noxious days to report to 311, the city government hot line.

Since becoming a shareholder, the groups say, they have had strikingly good
results, among them productive meetings with Synagro's chief executive, Robert
Boucher, and its general counsel, Alvin Thomas. Before the consortium made its
investment, Ms. Conte said, "there would be no way we would get a phone call
from the C.E.O. and head lawyer."

"As soon as we introduced the resolution, they flew to New York."

The shareholder activists are continuing to meet with Synagro executives and are
working with them on the scope of a report on the plant's operation and
emissions.

"As long as it's cost-effective and provides useful information, we'll do it,"
said Mr. Thomas, whose company accepts some responsibility for the local
smells, but also points out that other odor-causing businesses are in the area.

Sister Valerie Heinonen, a New York consultant with the national Mercy
Investment Program, one of the groups in the consortium, hopes that Hunts Point
residents will soon see benefits from the stock holding. "We're not just looking
for a report," she said. "We're looking for an improvement in the situation that
gets accomplished through the report. We're looking for a return on our
investment."

 

Originally Published August 13, 2006

New York Times 

City Section

Elena Conte

Solid Waste and Energy Coordinator

Sustainable South Bronx

Greening for Breathing Coordinator

890 Garrison Avenue, 4th Floor

Bronx, NY 10474

phone 718.617.4668

fax 718.617.5228

elena at ssbx.org
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