We were somewhat gratified last week when Niagara Falls City Councilman and mayoral hopeful Paul Dyster called for an outside investigation into the circumstances surrounding the illegal demolition of the former Acheson Graphite plant on Buffalo Avenue and the illegal construction of a parking lot there. We've been calling for just such an investigation for nearly three years now.
What troubles us is Dyster's timing. To our knowledge, last week marked the first occasion he seemed even to notice the ongoing environmental debacle that has characterized the "development" of the Acheson property.
Where was Dyster's outrage during September and October of 2000, when a series of late-night dynamite blasts shook the city's East Side and reduced the long-abandoned but still asbestos-laden factory to a heap of rubble? Ontario Specialty Contracting, the company responsible for the demolition, didn't even bother applying for a permit until after the work was completed.
State environmental officials, who had included the property on their list of hazardous waste sites, were never informed of the demolition.
Dyster never questioned City Administrator Al Joseph's assertion that requiring a permit would be "idiotic," since Harry Williams, who then owned the property, was immediately going to build a steel mill on the site and provide jobs for the city's unemployed. Nor did he squawk when the steel mill never materialized.
For two years, the rubble sat there, surrounded by a chain-link fence and signs that warned of the cancer and lung disease threat posed by the choking asbestos dust. Not once in those two years did Dyster's environmental sensitivity lead him to question whether residents in the neighborhood might be in danger.
He was silent last fall when a company called Acquest Empire proposed building a parking lot on the site, and didn't weigh in when City Court Judge Angelo Morinello gave the company six months to obtain the required permits. In May, when those six months expired and the required permits had still not been issued, Dyster was mute.
But with the Democratic primary fast approaching, and Dyster running third in a four-way race, the administration's handling of the Acheson affair looks like a sexy issue. Better yet, Ontario Specialty Contracting, Acquest Empire and all the other companies involved in the fiasco are controlled by the wealthy Williams family, who threw their support to Mayor Irene Elia last time around but who have now abandoned her in favor of county Legislator Sam Granieri, an opponent of Dyster's in the primary.
Nice move. Dyster gets to skunk up Elia and Granieri, pass himself off as an environmentalist and grab some headlines simply by holding a news conference.
Too bad it's all just a cynical show.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | August 5 2003 |