COMMENTARY
Donn Esmonde: Plant owner should clean up his act
Iam not in the habit of conveying messages, but in this case, Iamhappy to make an exception. Note to J. D. Crane: Anna Hackett is calling you out.
She wants you here, now, on her doorstep. She wants you to suck in the metallic-scented air that fills her lungs. She wants you to see the belching, benzene- laced black smoke that billows out of your Tonawanda Coke plant. She wants you to meet her neighbors—all of the mothers, fathers, sons and daughters living on Kaufman Street whose eyes burn and who gasp for breath and whose bodies have been invaded by mysteriously common cancers.
Anna Hackett does not often get in anybody’s face. She is 71 years old, barely 5 feet tall, wears cardigan sweaters and thick, metal-framed eyeglasses. But J. D. Crane, she wants a piece of you—and she wants it now.
“I’d like to see him stay here for a while,” said Hackett, standing outside her two-story house with the trimmed rose bushes. “I’d like to see him bring his family to live here and see how he likes it.”
Everyone on this street pays a price for living in the shadow of J. D. Crane’s coke plant. Some of them protested last week outside the plant’s gates. The owner—who refuses to come to community meetings, who does not reply to media questions—reportedly lives in the clean-air suburbs.
“He’s safe out there,” Hackett said. “We’re stuck.”
If Anna and her husband, Bill, knew 10 years ago what they know now, they never would have bought the house. That is the way a lot of folks on this street feel. The state Department of Environmental Conservation said the Tonawanda Coke plant spews benzene, a by-product of coke production, at up to 75 times higher than recommended guidelines. It is a carcinogen connected to leukemia, immune-system destruction and other diseases.
I spent a couple of hours Monday on Kaufman Street. That was plenty. The smell in the air ranged from eau de rotten egg to charred rubber. Either way, I did not want to breathe it.
Soot stains the blue vinyl siding of Anna Hackett’s home. Neighbors told me that black grit covers their cars and peppers their pool water. Take away the modern trappings, and we could be in a Dickens novel.
Despite the DEC report, Crane contends that his plant is not the problem. In a recent letter to Sen. Charles Schumer, he blamed elevated benzene levels on vehicle exhaust from nearby roadways, a claim that DEC officials reject. Crane is no stranger to bad air. His Erie Coke plant last year was smacked with a $6.1 million fine by Pennsylvania officials for air-quality violations.
Granted, Tonawanda Coke provides jobs for about 100 people. Nearby factories and chemical plants have cleaned up their pollution-spewing acts; it’s time for Tonawanda Coke to give it a whirl.
Anna Hackett wants J. D. Crane to hang around on her street. She would like him to spend time with neighborhood kids at the Kaufman Street playground. I am not kidding—there actually is a playground on this street. The triple smokestacks of the Tonawanda Coke plant dominate the horizon behind the swing set. There is a picnic area, for folks who like benzene seasoning in their burgers.
When playground time is over, Anna Hackett would like J. D. Crane to meet her husband. Like a lot of folks on this street, Bill Hackett, 76, has trouble breathing. He has an oxygen tank in the house and a portable unit for outings.
Anna Hackett would like J. D. Crane to see all of this. To feel it. And, most of all, to do something about it: Upgrade the plant so it does not spew as many toxins onto lawns and pools and playgrounds of her neighborhood.
“He should stop the emissions,” she said, “or get out of town.”
J. D. Crane, wherever you are: Anna Hackett is waiting.
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