Every time I go to Florida I am amazed at how much cleaner the air is compared to living here in Buffalo. Florida just does not have as much industry and the air from the Gulf and the Atlantic is so pleasant.
WNY is home to 7 of top state polluters
EPA data lists CWM Chemical, Huntley Station, 3M Co. as top 3 in the region
By Aaron Besecker
NEWS NIAGARA REPORTER
Published:
December 28, 2010, 7:44 AM
Seven of the state's 25 biggest polluters are located in Western New York, according to recently released data from the Environmental Protection Agency.
Erie and Niagara counties are each home to three of the top sites, and another is in Cattaraugus County, according to the EPA's Toxics Release Inventory for discharges made in 2009.
The area's largest polluter, according to EPA data, is CWM Chemical Services, a commercial hazardous waste landfill in Lewiston and Porter in northwest Niagara County.
CWM ranked seventh in the state, with its representatives reporting to federal regulators it released 765,544 pounds of waste, 99 percent of which it buried in its landfill.
Here are the other local sites that which ranked in the top 25:
- No. 8 -- Huntley Station, Town of Tonawanda.
- No. 14 -- 3M Co., Town of Tonawanda.
- No. 16 -- AES Somerset, Somerset.
- No. 18 -- DuPont Yerkes plant, Town of Tonawanda.
- No. 19 -- Niagara Generation, Niagara Falls.
- No. 21 -- Cooper Power Systems, Olean.
A CWM spokeswoman called the agency's methodology for its Toxics Release Inventory "misleading and counterintuitive."
"What is in fact an activity that provides a high level of community protection is inappropriately reported as a 'release' to the environment," spokeswoman Lori Caso said in a written statement.
The data, released earlier this month, is compiled by the agency from reports made by the companies. It includes releases into the ground, water and air, both on-site and off-site.
Regulators said the data does not reflect what exposure there may be to the public from the chemical releases.
Finch Paper in Glens Falls released nearly 3.8 million pounds of waste into the environment in 2009 and was the state's biggest polluter, according to the data. Eastman Kodak's Eastman Business Park in Rochester ranked second in 2009, releasing more than 2.9 million pounds of waste.
Statewide, total overall releases dropped about 26 percent to 18.3 million pounds from 2008, the EPA said.
The agency's latest annual inventory includes information from 646 facilities in New York.
Nationally, about 3.37 billion pounds were released into the environment last year, down 12 percent from 2008.
For more information on the Toxics Release Inventory, visit www.epa.gov/tri.
abesecker@buffnews.com
I wonder how many tonnes of waste was produced this christmas. It was not a pretty sight on garbage day on Linwood, Summer, North, Elmwood and Main - all of them had totes overflowing with 3x their capacities... Makes me think how much of pollution is personal responsibility of individuals as opposed to corporations...
"Every time I go to Florida I am amazed at how much cleaner the air is"
You know now that I think about it you're on to something, it does feel fresher down here.
As for the landfills, I always get a chuckle on how people talk up Lewiston as some great place when it has those landfills. Plus it also has a bunch of radioactive and toxic waste as well that isn't included on that list. But yea, come down to historic Lewiston, just ignore the gigantic mound on the horizon as you're coming down the escarpment.
Not that it makes it any better for the world, but for most of us, that stuff is upstream at least.
I saw that Article in the Paper but never got to it. With All the stuff you just Hear about like Oxy Chemical and stuff in the Falls and on grand island and Tonawanda Coke those stats make sense..... It is Still Scary though....