Niagara Falls, Where Are You Going?

Niagara Falls, where are you going?

Ashland Advanced Materials, LLC, is reportedly looking to reopen a section of the now defunct SGL Carbon Corporation property at 6100 Niagara Falls Blvd, although its representatives are quick to point out that it is not affiliated in any way to the past SGL Corporation. Ashland´s representatives are selling hard to seduce the city of Niagara Falls with all the right buzz words, seductive words like "$20 million investment", "new jobs" and "greener".

Sure, the $20 million would increase the city´s tax base with much-needed revenue; and the new jobs could stimulate the economy in the city which desperately needs that shot in the arm. The greener side of manufacturing is the only acceptable way to go, but within the city, anything new could be greener than the depredating brown field past.

Sounds good to some, but the tourism industry isn´t buying it.

A recent community meeting produced a swell of emotions, culminating in a heated exchange between local business owners, residents and Mr. Guy Bax, Niagara Falls City Commissioner of Inspections. Mr. Bax, obviously in favor of this new development, chided the opposition citing the obvious benefit of the aforementioned tax base and employment potential. Locals are concerned about the effects of the manufactory on the city´s burgeoning tourism industry.

Now Niagara Falls is faced with a crossroads. Much like the rest of America, the citizens of Niagara Falls want change, but do not want to change to get it. So, the question is, where do we go from here?

Industry, once king in the city, brought folks from hundreds to thousands of miles away to find jobs in Niagara Falls. However, once those factories closed, the city´s infrastructure--fractured and bleeding--never really recovered. With the big industries gone, tourism seems like the Falls´ best bet to compete with the rest of the world.

But, industry can survive with tourism, if it is done right. They can coexist, but within well-defined boundaries. City tourism must be insulated from the risks of the industries, and the city deserves to be enhanced by the aesthetics of their margins. It is not wrong to look at industry while building a world class tourism initiative. However, the city must pay special attention not to repeat the sins of the past.

There are enough polluted areas within the city´s limits. It is no surprise to anyone that Hooker--S Area, Hooker--Hyde Park and the Forest Glen Mobile Home Subdivision are included on the CDC´s National Priority List for toxic waste remediation. Old news.

But do you know many of the existing Falls´ industries are under scrutiny for continued toxic emissions?

Nineteen--yes, nineteen-- industries within the city limits are currently listed by the EPA in the Toxics Release Inventory, and catalogued by the Centers for Disease Control.

So what?

Being monitored is good for you, but the continuing emissions are not. And it is not what you know, but what you don´t that can hurt you. Everyone knows about Love Canal, the brown fields and the sluggish battle for remediation to make city land reusable. And most know not to eat the fish from the river. But what are you breathing?

The nineteen in-city industries currently monitored are discharging chemicals into the air like ammonia, asbestos, formaldehyde, toluene, cresol, lead, sulfuric acid, hydrochloric acid and more. Accompanying information listed on the Environmental Health Webmap of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) portion of the CDC explains the health risks for most of these emissions associated with your local listed industries. The map also includes markers showing those emitting industries and their relative proximity to local schools and daycare facilities. Websites for some of the listed facilities tout the "greenness" of their products and manufacturing, as well as the inclusion of patting themselves on the back for giving back to the community. Translation: if we give them enough cash they won´t complain about their health.

There is no true need to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to prove the potential hazards of emissions. A clear example is the LOOW survey that took nearly a decade to complete and offered little in the way of answers for the public. We all know most of these emissions cause respiratory disorders, renal disorders, birth defects and or cancers. One does not need a survey; one only needs to talk to a few residents to realize what familial devastation has already occurred because city officials believed an industry´s promise while accepting their flashing cash. Sadly, one only needs to stroll the marble orchard.

The right thing for city elected officials to do is fix what is broken before inviting another industry in.

Former city administrator Bill Bradberry says three things need to happen in order for industry and tourism to peacefully coexist. "First, encourage clean and green industrial development to occur within proper industrial zones. Secondly, take advantage of the opportunity to find the appropriate location for this industry, which would be a new version of a new development zone specifically chosen for green, clean industry, providing new jobs and a solid tax base. The current SGL site should be cleaned up to incorporate it back into the tourism gateway corridor, and make it suitable for other gateway tourism facilities. Third, brown field remediation could be attained if Niagara Falls presents itself as a world case-study in how to clean up the polluted land by inviting pollution and ecological experts to the region in order to accurately evaluate the damage and open the doors to finding solutions for the problems that continue to plague the city."

Niagara Falls will be no better off by allowing a new industry to take hold without the current administration admitting the deplorable condition of the city´s land requires immediate intervention. City elected officials must chart a course developing tourism and rezoning in order to isolate industries from the struggling tourism corridor--while taking full responsibility and garnering all available resources necessary to clean up the city. A solid tax base can be achieved without further risk to the citizens, only if panicked city officials don´t jump at the first flash of green from corporations who only look at this beautiful city as just another dump.

Choose a direction. Where do you want your city to go?