My neck muscles tightened. I stood back as far as possible from the railing atop the St. Lawrence Cement Co. plants silo and adjusted my hard hat, hoping a gust wouldnt sweep it (or me)

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A New View Of Plant's Controversy

My neck muscles tightened.

I stood back as far as possible from the railing atop the St. Lawrence Cement Co. plant's silo and adjusted my hard hat, hoping a gust wouldn't sweep it (or me) away.An elevator clicked and hummed as it carried the cement additive the company produces 240 feet up to the top of the silo, where it's dumped and stored until shipment by truck or barge.

GranCem is made by grinding sand-like slag from steel production into a powder that improves cement strength.From my vantage, I could see South Camden's phalanx of industries, railroads, docks, highways and row homes. It's not a pretty picture, but it helped me gain perspective about the St. Lawrence controversy.

"The people are mad as hell about living here," said Morris Smith, a local representative for the company, as wind whipped his overcoat. "The reality is, (St. Lawrence) walked into an intractable situation."Control room operator Gregg Thomas, who is black, doesn't understand the fuss.

Speaking at the ground-level control room, the 54-year Camden resident said this is the best job he ever had.St. Lawrence, of course, has been at the center of a landmark federal court battle. A grass-roots group, South Camden Citizens in Action, argues the state violated the civil rights of blacks and Hispanics in the area by allowing the plant to discharge dust.

The area that spread out below the silo was once a center of Camden's industrial might. Obviously, it was never intended to be a residential area, but people live there nonetheless.Timeworn brick buildings that once served the massive New York Shipbuilding yard now serve the South Jersey Port Corp. A sprawling factory that has processed licorice root for more than a century juts into the Delaware River.

But what really stood out were the Camden County sewage treatment plant that sprawls across the waterfront and the massive hulk of the county's trash-to-steam plant that lords over Interstate 676. St. Lawrence seems like Camelot by comparison.Dust does coat the interior of the cement company's big grinding building.

But Kevin Foody, a plant manager, says " negative pressure" keeps the dust inside. I certainly did not see dust flying around outside.Traces of dust are discharged through a tall stack along with heat that operates the grinding machine. Foody said air cleaners are as efficient as possible at removing dust that goes up the stack.

"You get more dust from the road," he said.By Lawrence HajnaCourier-Post - 3/30/2002Topic: Toxics
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