Source: Buffalo News, August 30, 2015
Posted on: http://envfpn.advisen.com
In March of last year, a federal judge called Tonawanda Coke’s environmental record “singularly inexcusable” and fined the company $24 million.
A year later, Tonawanda Coke is back in court but, this time, it’s the company seeking cash.
The Town of Tonawanda manufacturer, in a recently filed lawsuit, claims Honeywell, a Fortune 100 company, is partly responsible for the environmental problems that exist at its River Road site. One of Honeywell’s predecessors, Allied Chemical, owned the plant for nearly three decades.
As part of the suit, Tonawanda Coke seeks more than $30 million from Honeywell.
“Clearly, some of these legacy issues are Honeywell’s issues,” said Jeffrey C. Stravino, a Buffalo lawyer representing Tonawanda Coke.
In court papers, the company points to recent problems cited by the state Department of Environmental Conservation and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and claims some of those problems date back to Honeywell’s use of the site.
The suit, for example, mentions an abandoned tank farm with three above-ground storage units used for coal tar. It also refers to a coal crane and conveyor system that Tonawanda Coke claims Honeywell left behind.
The company says the abandoned equipment alone will cost more than $6 million to remove.
Honeywell, which has yet to formally respond to the allegations in court, said the environmental problems at the plant became Tonawanda Coke’s responsibility when it purchased the site 37 years ago.
The company also pointed to its extensive environmental record in Buffalo and Niagara Falls, including the cleanup of the Buffalo River, as evidence of its commitment to the local community.
“Tonawanda Coke has responsibility for environmental matters at the site,” Honeywell spokeswoman Victoria Streitfeld said of the River Road plant. “We will vigorously oppose this lawsuit and are confident we will prevail.”
Stravino said the two companies have been in discussions for at least 10 months and have so far failed to reach an agreement on what, if anything, Honeywell will contribute to the plant’s remediation.
“Enough’s enough,” Stravino said of talks between the two sides. “There came a time when Tonawanda Coke felt it had to protect its rights.”
The lawsuit is based, in large part, on the 1978 sales agreement that resulted in Tonawanda Coke’s acquisition of the 98-year-old plant. Stravino said the agreement makes Honeywell liable for any cleanup costs directly linked to its stewardship of the facility.
When asked if the $30 million in new remediation costs, combined with the $24 million criminal fine, has put Tonawanda Coke in difficult financial straits, Stravino said he could not comment.
He did, however, indicate that the $30 million estimate of Honeywell’s share of the cleanup costs is credible.
While the two companies battle in court, Tonawanda Coke is waiting for a federal appeals court to rule on its 2-year-old criminal conviction and subsequent sentence by U.S. District Judge William M. Skretny.
In March 2013, a federal court jury found the company and one of its executives guilty of polluting the air and ground at its Town of Tonawanda plant.
The following year, Skretny fined the company and ordered it to make annual installment payments into a court-controlled account while its appeal is pending. About half of the money, $11 million, is earmarked for a study into Tonawanda Coke’s impact on the health of workers and neighboring residents.