By Joe Hirsch
news@huntspointexpress.com
A pre-dusk explosion at the New York Organic Fertilizer Company badly damaged a storage silo at the plant on Oak Point Avenue and sent sludge and fertilizer pellets flying into its parking lot.
No one was injured, but the state Department of Environmental Conservation ordered the plant to stop using six of its seven silos until the agency gains a firmer understanding of what caused the explosion and how to prevent it from happening again.
The blast was reported at 6:18 p.m. on a dark, drizzly July 21, after something apparently ignited inside one of the silos used to store the pellets. Fire trucks and police cars rushed to the scene.
The explosion caused a catwalk connecting two silos to collapse and damaged pipes atop the network of silos. It also hurled a five-foot long instrument used in the pellet-making process into the parking lot.
The explosion “is further proof that a plant of this nature and scale should not be sited so close to a residential neighborhood and in an area that serves as the breadbasket of the Tri-State area,” said Rep. Jose Serrano in an e-mail response to questions from The Express.
“It proves that New York City needs to rethink the outsourcing of its sewage disposal to companies that seem unwilling or unable to comply with reasonable safety and public nuisance standards,” the congressman continued.
“I have opposed this plant and its operations for years and this incident is yet another reason why New York City should suspend NYOFCo’s contract and conduct a thorough reexamination of how it handles sewage sludge.”
NYOFCo, which converts sludge trucked in from sewage treatment plants around the city into fertilizer pellets used on citrus farms in Florida and Texas, has been a cause of controversy for years. Residents regularly complain that nauseating smells from the plant make them sick.
According to the DEC, “Inspectors did not identify any risk to the surrounding community during its evening and morning inspections, but such an explosion could have caused injuries to workers. Fortunately, this one did not. Also, the explosion resulted in the release of pellet material, which is an unacceptable condition.”
In an e-mail to The Express, the DEC said it is conducting an investigation to find the cause and determine how the incident could have been prevented. The regulatory agency will “require NYOFCo to take corrective action to prevent such an incident from happening again,” it said.
Those assurances don’t stop longtime critics of NYOFCo from feeling nervous.
“Were there air monitors set up?” asked Jamie Stein, environmental policy analyst for Sustainable South Bronx. “Was the community put at risk from the pellets and dust?”
Although, the DEC recently imposed tighter restrictions on NYOFCo’s operations, Stein worries that the new permit doesn’t address the fact “that the fertilizer pellet is highly combustible.”
NYOFCo’s general manager, John Kopec, declined to comment on the explosion, referring questions to the city’s Department of Environmental Protection.
Responding to questions from The Express, DEP spokesman Angel Roman, said his agency, too is investigating. In an e-mail, he called the explosion “minor,” and said, “Our initial assessment is that a portion of the material in the silo became hot, causing ignition. Thankfully, nobody was hurt and we are assessing next steps in terms of plant operations.”
A version of this article appeared in the August edition of the Hunts Point Express.