OUR VIEW SUBMISSION: 7 APRIL 2003

The Register-Star has a responsibility to the community and to the facts

by Peter Jung, President, and Sam Pratt, Executive Director, Friends of Hudson

 

The Register-Star's editorial column has hit a new low.

While every newspaper publisher has a right to his own opinion, hometown newspapers also have a responsibility not to invent "facts" out of thin air to fit a preconceived position.

The Register's April 7th editorial on St. Lawrence Cement was even more riddled with errors than usual. (By contrast, the paper's reporters are much more careful and responsible in their work, and rarely make such obvious mistakes.)

Let's take each of these gross errors one-by-one -- first the Register's claim, then a review of the actual facts.


CLAIM #1: Describing the Citizens Environmental Coalition, the Register states definitively that "Friends of Hudson is a major part of this coalition."

FACT: Friends of Hudson is not a "major part" of CEC. It's not even a minor part. In fact, we had no involvement with that organization before submitting our nomination to their panel of experts, which chose SLC among dozens of other possibilities. CEC made its own, independent selections in awarding this year's "Dirty Dozen Awards." What motivated the Register's editorial writer to make this patently false assumption?


CLAIM #2: The Register states that CEC's "press conference was well-staged theater."

FACT: No one from the Register attended CEC's press conference. So in fact, its publisher has no idea what kind of theater (if any) took place there. Why is the Register-Star speaking as an authority on a press conference which it did not attend?


CLAIM #3: The Register states that "St. Lawrence Catskill has a very good environmental record."

FACT:  According to State records, the Catskill plant was subject to fifteen investigations, consent orders, and other compliance actions by New York State regulators between 1991-1999. During that period, the plant paid at least $158,000 in fines. This list has been presented in hearings and briefs, and called to the Register's attention several times, yet the paper's editorials continue to ignore the company's history of problems at Catskill.


CLAIM #4: The Register claims that "according to the cement company's draft environmental impact statement, this proposed new plant will produce three times the cement with less pollution" than their existing Catskill plant.

FACT:  According to the company's application, the new plant would produce 3.3 times the cement (to be exact). Using the updated 2002 Catskill pollution figures announced by SLC in the Register-Star's own pages last summer, the new plant seeks permits for 43% more regulated pollutants than they currently emit at Catskill.

While the Register-Star's publisher continues to rely on the company's empty and unenforceable promises of lower "typical" emissions, Friends of Hudson stands by this comparison as the only relevant, real-world analysis that can be based on SLC's own numbers.

SLC's own application materials have proved full of contradictions. For example, one version of its DEIS said the plant would emit 440 pounds of lead annually, while another said just 44 pounds. That's just one of many differences, but the company has never bothered to try to explain.

We note once again that the Texas facility used by SLC as a showcase for its Greenport plant made exactly the same promises about "making the air cleaner" that they advertise here in the Hudson Valley. But in August 2002, that plant, which is run by SLC's parent company, was fined over $220,000 for making that region's air quality much worse.

Likewise, the brand new SLC slag plant in Camden was fined within months of opening for failing to even turn its pollution monitors on. Given this recent history, it is remarkable that the Register-Star continues to take all of St. Lawrence's pollution claims at face value.


CLAIM #5: The Register asserts that a "DEC environmental law judge... threw out all FoH challenges to the use of coal in this proposal."

FACT: While declining to adjudicate coal vs. gas issues at the time, two judges (not one) also noted their continued concerns about SLC's coal claims, and the need for more investigation. On December 7, 2001, the judges wrote that: "We recognize that there has been a specific omission in SLC's calculations in the context of the choice of fuel issue... Accordingly, we have concerns about the lack of analysis in the application regarding coal composition."

The judges then directed "SLC and the staff to provide clarification of this point and second, include in this submission information on how the applicant intends to comply [with] sulfur limits in the fuel."

However, St. Lawrence Cement has yet to provide any clarification on this key coal question. Instead, the company still seeks, through its 300-page appeal, to stop any further examination of its claims. In addition, as the Register-Star did report, a memorandum from EPA Region 2 stated the same concerns as Friends of Hudson's engineers that this plant would not be a "state of the art" facility.

Opponents remain willing to put our arguments to the test with sworn testimony, but SLC is not. Yet the Register's publisher continues to swallow (and regurgitate) whatever SLC's public relations team tells him, despite the many official recognitions of our experts' testimony.


CLAIM #6: The Register-Star's editorial repeats charges from an SLC-funded front group, saying that Friends of Hudson's challenges to the plant are only "about the money." It even snidely suggests that the organization exists to merely to fund "brie and wine parties."

FACT: Such juvenile remarks hardly deserve a response, but let us put this offensive suggestion to rest once and for all.

Neither of us, nor any other member of our Board, has made a single penny in the past 4 years of challenging SLC. Indeed, many of us have given up substantial income from our other work in order to volunteer for the organization; and every board and staff member has made donations and purchases for the organization out of our own pockets.

In 2002, only 1% of our budget went to staff salaries. Virtually every penny on the dollar of our budget goes to the essential work of independent engineers, biologists, and other experts to make our case. We operate with an extremely low overhead due to our streamlined staff and thrifty office. By contrast, St. Lawrence Cement has paid a small army of executives and professional spin doctors to make their case, and has tried to use donations to buy support from some community groups.

(Moreover, we have worked hard to get the 31 other groups now challenging St. Lawrence involved. If our goal really were enrichment and growth of our own organization, as the Register charges, wouldn't we have kept other groups away from the issue, rather than encouraging a collaborative approach?)

Given that the Register-Star's publisher accepts tens of thousands of dollars a year in advertising and other subsidies from St. Lawrence Cement, it is frankly hypocritical for him to charge others -- who have received no such compensation -- of being in it for "the money." Revealingly, Molenda also never inquires into the funding or motivation of HVEEC, the St. Lawrence front group.

By resorting to such gratuitous accusations against plant opponents, his column shows a total lack of respect for members of the community -- and also reveals his own lack of sound, factual arguments in favor of the plant.


Of course, the Register-Star's editorial position on the St. Lawrence Cement proposal has never been based in facts, research, or even community spirit. In a meeting with publisher Molenda last year, he frankly admitted that his support of the project was based on his absolute faith in SLC. He admitted to having read only a very few pages of the company's application, and not a single page from opponent's lengthy briefs.

We would add just one other point. Of the many editorial boards in the Tri-State area, the publisher of the Register-Star/Hudson Valley Newspaper chain stands alone in his support of the plant. Every other credible newspaper that has taken a position on the plant has either (1) come out against against the plant, or (2) at minimum called for much more thorough scrutiny of St. Lawrence Cement's claims.

In an odd way, your publisher's conspiracy theories about Friends of Hudson are strangely flattering.

Publisher Molenda seems to believe that Friends of Hudson is so devilishly persuasive, and so astonishingly well-organized, that we could pull the wool over the eyes of dozens of other organizations, DEC judges and EPA officials, tens of thousands of residents, The New York Times as well as other editorial boards throughout the region with a "big lie."

Apparently, only publisher Molenda is astute enough to see the truth.

The other possibility, of course, is that the Register-Star's publisher is wildly, desperately, and scandalously wrong -- wrong to trust the company, wrong to take such an offensive tone, and wrong most of all to base his arguments on completely unfounded "facts."

FRIENDS OF HUDSON is a project of the Open Space Institute, Inc.