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Truck issue gears up again
By Hallie Goodman
Hudson-Catskill Newspapers
HUDSON — On Tuesday night, Linda Mussmann, co-owner of Time & Space Limited at 434 Columbia St., and founder of the Bottom Line political party, held a public meeting to discuss getting the O & G gravel trucks out of Hudson.
Though many trucks drive through the city, the 300 O & G trucks that pass through each day far outnumber those from other companies.
The city’s problems with truck traffic are nothing new, and many of the players who’ve shaped past discussions on the topic were at the meeting. Besides Mussmann and her partner Claudia Bruce, Hudson Mayor Richard Scalera and Basilica Industria owner Patrick Doyle were in attendance. Sam Pratt, the former director of Friends of Hudson, also participated, albeit from cyberspace, calling Mussmann’s motives into question in an e-mail to the Register-Star.
Kenneth Merz, a representative from O & G, and dock manager Wade Skidmore, were also there.
O & G Industries Inc. is a company contracted by Holcim, formerly St. Lawrence Cement, to truck aggregate or gravel out of Becraft Mountain and deliver it to the Holcim-owned dock where it is loaded onto barges. The company’s trucks travel down Green Street, turn down Columbia Street, turn again on Front Street, before crossing the railroad tracks near the Amtrak Station on their way to the port.
According to a press release issued by Mussmann, the meeting was called “to discuss the health and safety issues presented by the high volume of truck traffic in the city, and the [Bottom Line Party’s] plans to demand that the trucks be banned from the current route.”
In the meeting, Mussmann said that the route cuts through the most densely populated portion of Columbia County, and the most densely populated neighborhood in the city. She also said the area has a high concentration of low-to-mid-income residents who do not have the option of relocating. And that the noise, fumes and damage to the city’s infrastructure affects the health and safety of residents all along the route and negatively impact businesses, including her own.
“We have lots of houses over there and no yards, and the children play outside,” said Supervisor Edward Cross, D-Hudson2.
In an e-mail, Executive Director Tina Sharpe, said, “Columbia Opportunities, Inc. is very concerned about increased truck traffic on Columbia St. It pose[s] both a safety issue and hardship for our customers and employees.”
Paul Colarusso, who operates the aggregate mine, said getting trucks out of the city was in everybody’s best interest economically, as street lights and traffic slow truckers down. Representatives from O & G agreed.
Scalera said truck traffic was the first issue he focussed on when he took office, and in his opinion, there were three possible rerouting solutions. The first would require “building up and paving” what he called an access road. Others argue the access road is an old railroad bed where the ties and tracks have simply been removed, to create a path from the quarry to the river. The truck route would cross routes 9 and 9G and continue on the access road/railroad bed.
The second option would involve following the same access road down to 9G and then using a conveyor belt to get it over 9G. “Then the conversation becomes which side of 9G would you put the conveyor belt,” said Scalera.
The third option, would be to take no action and leave things the way they are.
“The one we need to rule out right away is the one that is happening right now,” he said.
When Scalera finished, Doyle said he had another alternative for the city to consider. Doyle said that in addition to the concerns that had already been outlined, the fact that truck traffic was crossing Broad Street near the South Street Pump Station was “bad news.
“Running trucks over South Front Street is pounding on our sewer system. If that sewer system collapses its going to be more than a little inconvenient,” he said.
“This is a transportation issue but it is more than just a road,” he said. “It impacts people’s lives.”
Doyle then outlined his proposed path for the trucks. From the quarry to Route 9G, Doyle’s plan followed the same railroad bed as Scalera’s, but at 9G Doyle would have the trucks turn and head east, staying on 9G. Then, as they neared the former L&B building, they would leave 9G and head towards L&B, running alongside the building on a newly widened road until arriving the site of the former garbage dump.
There, the trucks would deposit their loads at a staging ground on top of the former dump. Finally, a conveyor belt would transport the gravel the remaining distance to the port. Doyle said the gravel would be camouflaged by trees for most of the year, so it would not create visual blight.
The plan would require paving and widening the existing road that runs alongside L&B, which Doyle said he felt L&B should allow, in light of all that the city had done to try to help keep the company in business. He said that adding a paved road would increase the property’s value by adding street frontage.
Scalera dismissed Doyle’s idea, saying that the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation would never allow it. But Doyle countered that the city would have to present a mitigation plan and have it rejected to know that for sure.
Doyle also said the plan to create a permanent road through a wetland would likely be a much bigger issue to the DEC and the state, and that the CSX Railroad would not allow another crossing to be built, which both of Scalera’s plans would require.
“Policy # 7 [in the LWRP] says you cannot construct anything that permanently keeps a wetland from being restored,” Doyle said. “In the decision against SLC, the state said that St. Lawrence could not go through the wetlands, it said that putting a road through the middle of it would permanently prevent restoration. There are other ways to look at the problem, instead of creating a permanent impediment.”
On Wednesday, Doyle said that he did not oppose Scalera. “I am simply proposing an alternative that they have not entertained, and it’s a viable alternative,” he said.
In a statement e-mailed to the Register-Star, Sam Pratt, who led the fight against St. Lawrence Cement’s proposed Greenport plant, called Mussmann’s meeting and call for a petition “propaganda.”
“It appears Linda is studiously avoiding some key history and options, and fobbing off a piece of pro-O&G/SLC propaganda as a faux-populist petition. Normally, the target of a petition hasn’t already endorsed the likely outcome of the petitioners’ grievances,” he wrote.
According to the statement, Pratt describes O & G’s Hudson dealings as a way for the company to stake out a bargaining position related to the waterfront.
“SLC had long sought to turn the former railbed/causeway through the Federally-protected wetlands of South Bay into an industrial corridor, but was denied through the Greenport project permitting process.
“So now we have a ‘petition’ which, in the guise of a citizen outcry, appears in fact to serve O&G/SLC’s long-sought goals of establishing a permanent footprint in the South Bay,” Pratt wrote.
When told of Pratt’s allegations, Mussmann said she had no idea what Pratt thought she’d gain by being dishonest.
“My goal is to ask the hard questions and get this extreme burden out of my neighborhood,” she said.
When reached by phone on Wednesday, Scalera said once again that Doyle’s idea would not work.
“L & B is not an option,” Scalera said. “They are doing everything they can to market their building, the last thing they want is to tell a prospective buyer that they have 300 trucks passing by their windows even short term.”
HUDSON — On Tuesday night, Linda Mussmann, co-owner of Time & Space Limited at 434 Columbia St., and founder of the Bottom Line political party, held a public meeting to discuss getting the O & G gravel trucks out of Hudson.
Though many trucks drive through the city, the 300 O & G trucks that pass through each day far outnumber those from other companies.
The city’s problems with truck traffic are nothing new, and many of the players who’ve shaped past discussions on the topic were at the meeting. Besides Mussmann and her partner Claudia Bruce, Hudson Mayor Richard Scalera and Basilica Industria owner Patrick Doyle were in attendance. Sam Pratt, the former director of Friends of Hudson, also participated, albeit from cyberspace, calling Mussmann’s motives into question in an e-mail to the Register-Star.
Kenneth Merz, a representative from O & G, and dock manager Wade Skidmore, were also there.
O & G Industries Inc. is a company contracted by Holcim, formerly St. Lawrence Cement, to truck aggregate or gravel out of Becraft Mountain and deliver it to the Holcim-owned dock where it is loaded onto barges. The company’s trucks travel down Green Street, turn down Columbia Street, turn again on Front Street, before crossing the railroad tracks near the Amtrak Station on their way to the port.
According to a press release issued by Mussmann, the meeting was called “to discuss the health and safety issues presented by the high volume of truck traffic in the city, and the [Bottom Line Party’s] plans to demand that the trucks be banned from the current route.”
In the meeting, Mussmann said that the route cuts through the most densely populated portion of Columbia County, and the most densely populated neighborhood in the city. She also said the area has a high concentration of low-to-mid-income residents who do not have the option of relocating. And that the noise, fumes and damage to the city’s infrastructure affects the health and safety of residents all along the route and negatively impact businesses, including her own.
“We have lots of houses over there and no yards, and the children play outside,” said Supervisor Edward Cross, D-Hudson2.
In an e-mail, Executive Director Tina Sharpe, said, “Columbia Opportunities, Inc. is very concerned about increased truck traffic on Columbia St. It pose[s] both a safety issue and hardship for our customers and employees.”
Paul Colarusso, who operates the aggregate mine, said getting trucks out of the city was in everybody’s best interest economically, as street lights and traffic slow truckers down. Representatives from O & G agreed.
Scalera said truck traffic was the first issue he focussed on when he took office, and in his opinion, there were three possible rerouting solutions. The first would require “building up and paving” what he called an access road. Others argue the access road is an old railroad bed where the ties and tracks have simply been removed, to create a path from the quarry to the river. The truck route would cross routes 9 and 9G and continue on the access road/railroad bed.
The second option would involve following the same access road down to 9G and then using a conveyor belt to get it over 9G. “Then the conversation becomes which side of 9G would you put the conveyor belt,” said Scalera.
The third option, would be to take no action and leave things the way they are.
“The one we need to rule out right away is the one that is happening right now,” he said.
When Scalera finished, Doyle said he had another alternative for the city to consider. Doyle said that in addition to the concerns that had already been outlined, the fact that truck traffic was crossing Broad Street near the South Street Pump Station was “bad news.
“Running trucks over South Front Street is pounding on our sewer system. If that sewer system collapses its going to be more than a little inconvenient,” he said.
“This is a transportation issue but it is more than just a road,” he said. “It impacts people’s lives.”
Doyle then outlined his proposed path for the trucks. From the quarry to Route 9G, Doyle’s plan followed the same railroad bed as Scalera’s, but at 9G Doyle would have the trucks turn and head east, staying on 9G. Then, as they neared the former L&B building, they would leave 9G and head towards L&B, running alongside the building on a newly widened road until arriving the site of the former garbage dump.
There, the trucks would deposit their loads at a staging ground on top of the former dump. Finally, a conveyor belt would transport the gravel the remaining distance to the port. Doyle said the gravel would be camouflaged by trees for most of the year, so it would not create visual blight.
The plan would require paving and widening the existing road that runs alongside L&B, which Doyle said he felt L&B should allow, in light of all that the city had done to try to help keep the company in business. He said that adding a paved road would increase the property’s value by adding street frontage.
Scalera dismissed Doyle’s idea, saying that the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation would never allow it. But Doyle countered that the city would have to present a mitigation plan and have it rejected to know that for sure.
Doyle also said the plan to create a permanent road through a wetland would likely be a much bigger issue to the DEC and the state, and that the CSX Railroad would not allow another crossing to be built, which both of Scalera’s plans would require.
“Policy # 7 [in the LWRP] says you cannot construct anything that permanently keeps a wetland from being restored,” Doyle said. “In the decision against SLC, the state said that St. Lawrence could not go through the wetlands, it said that putting a road through the middle of it would permanently prevent restoration. There are other ways to look at the problem, instead of creating a permanent impediment.”
On Wednesday, Doyle said that he did not oppose Scalera. “I am simply proposing an alternative that they have not entertained, and it’s a viable alternative,” he said.
In a statement e-mailed to the Register-Star, Sam Pratt, who led the fight against St. Lawrence Cement’s proposed Greenport plant, called Mussmann’s meeting and call for a petition “propaganda.”
“It appears Linda is studiously avoiding some key history and options, and fobbing off a piece of pro-O&G/SLC propaganda as a faux-populist petition. Normally, the target of a petition hasn’t already endorsed the likely outcome of the petitioners’ grievances,” he wrote.
According to the statement, Pratt describes O & G’s Hudson dealings as a way for the company to stake out a bargaining position related to the waterfront.
“SLC had long sought to turn the former railbed/causeway through the Federally-protected wetlands of South Bay into an industrial corridor, but was denied through the Greenport project permitting process.
“So now we have a ‘petition’ which, in the guise of a citizen outcry, appears in fact to serve O&G/SLC’s long-sought goals of establishing a permanent footprint in the South Bay,” Pratt wrote.
When told of Pratt’s allegations, Mussmann said she had no idea what Pratt thought she’d gain by being dishonest.
“My goal is to ask the hard questions and get this extreme burden out of my neighborhood,” she said.
When reached by phone on Wednesday, Scalera said once again that Doyle’s idea would not work.
“L & B is not an option,” Scalera said. “They are doing everything they can to market their building, the last thing they want is to tell a prospective buyer that they have 300 trucks passing by their windows even short term.”
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