St. Lawrence Cement Co. plans to build a new state-of-the-art cement plant in upstate New York along the Hudson River. The coal-flamed plant, to be built in Greenport, Columbia County, would replace a smaller existing plant in the nearby city of Catskill. The plant would be the largest cement plant in the United States, and the project would give a needed boost to upstate New York’s lagging economy.

Since the announcement of the project in 1998, however, the proposal has been vehemently opposed by environmental activists who claim that the plant’s 40-story smoke stack would emit high levels of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide into the air. And government officials in Maine, New Hampshire, and Connecticut have jumped on the anti-plant bandwagon, claiming that these emissions would drift north and east, polluting the air in their states, according to a report in the New York Times’ Metro section yesterday.

Proponents of the project insist the plant would actually be safer for the environment than the plant it is slotted to replace, which has triple the amount of cement output. According to Lynn Muller, a political consultant to St. Lawrence Cement, “By all measures, major pollutants drop appreciably on an aggregate level.” She says the levels of sulfur dioxide would drop by 85%, mercury by 94%, and lead by 95%. The project has won the endorsement of two doctors from Harvard School of Public Health who have said,”It is without doubt that there will be a net benefit on the regional and local air quality.”

It’s clear the proposed plant would boost the economy of the Hudson Valley, infusing $60 million a year into the state’s economy once it is operational. St. Lawrence has already agreed to pay the host town of Greenport $200,000 a year, as well as $800,000 worth of local taxes each year, $500,000 of which would go toward school taxes. A similar agreement with the town of Hudson is pending. In addition, the plant would provide employment and job security to union members who strongly support the project. It would also create approximately 1,600 construction jobs in the area.

Nevertheless, the project has been put on hold for the past four years as the Department of Environmental Conservation conducts hearings on the issue. Although St. Lawrence has already acquired the 1,800-acre plot of land, the Montreal-based company needs the approval of Commissioner Erin M. Crotty before construction can begin on the $320 million project. For several years, the governor and his allies have worked to bring New York out of an economic slump. It’s hard to see how they’re going to succeed if they can’t even permit the most civically and environmentally responsible of cement companies to set up a badly needed plant upstate.