by Alex Brooks
The Petersburgh Planning Board heard a presentation from Taconic about their plant expansion project. Taconic plans to put an addition on their production building to house new oven rooms.
[private]Plant Manager Tim Kosto said, “We have a need to coat more fabric here in the United States.” He said the expansion will involve hiring 35 new employees directly in the new production area and may also involve a few more jobs in the finishing areas.
The addition will be 11,000 square feet, and it will be built onto the west side of their existing production building. They will also be building a new parking lot across the road on the west side of Coonbrook Road, which will be 216 feet by 128 feet.
The expansion will require an air emissions permit from DEC. Karen Toth, the plant’s Environmental Manager, said DEC is coming out for a site visit on Thursday, July 10, and she hopes to have her draft air permit soon after that. Because the new ovens will increase the amount of air emissions, a new permit is needed. Toth said these permits are given for a ten year period.
These air emissions are treated with scrubbers to clean the air before release. The scrubbers use water to clean the air, passing it through a “water curtain.” Toth said there is no discharge of this water. It is collected in a sump and pumped out periodically by an outside contractor.
A public hearing will need to be scheduled for this project, but Planning Board Vice Chairman Tim Church said they could not schedule a hearing until Taconic has its air emissions permit from DEC, and Chairman Frank Sheldon agreed. The Board expressed a willingness to help Taconic expedite the project where possible and agreed to keep in touch so that if the air permit was issued in time, they could schedule the public hearing for their July 28 meeting.[/private]