Clay residents fire up town hall over concrete plant plans: What's at stake?

Hundreds of people concerned about the plan for a concrete plant in clay turned out for Monday night’s meeting at town hall.

Neighbors against the proposed 50-foot-tall plant say traffic is a big concern.

Plans presented by the applicant, Goguen Drive Realty LLC, say the site requires 504 total truck trips per day between the hours of 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. That’s 63 trucks an hour, or more than one per minute.

Water usage is another issue. Plans show the facility will use 18,900 gallons of water per day. That amounts to nearly seven million gallons per year.

One difference in Monday night’s meeting was that the developers came prepared with PowerPoint slides and presentations on the factors that attendees had been concerned about. At the previous meetings, attendees told CNY Central that they felt the developers had come under-prepared.

“They couldn’t tell us how it worked, how it ran, how many trucks there will be, how tall it would be they couldn’t answer the basic questions, where if you’re asking for a permit, those should’ve been given to the town already,” said Beth and Clem Thompson, who lives in Clay.

Despite the presentations, it was clear from the questions that people asked, and from the loud cheers that those questions received that people still didn’t feel comfortable with the idea of the plant in their community. Thompson explained why the potential effects to the air is a big part of his concern.

“My concern would be the people that already have existing health conditions is this going to create more, and when will we know?” Thompson said. “It will be five years, 10 years, and then it’s too late because the plants are already there.”

Clay town supervisor Damian Ulatowski admitted that he felt the presenters were underprepared at the last meeting, but he said that he felt they were more prepared heading into Monday night's meeting.

“It is our responsibility to give applicants the opportunity to speak and present their argument in front of the board,” Ulatowski said. “I don’t prepare their material though. They come in and show us what they’re looking for, and it’s their responsibility to put together the things that we need to make an intelligent decision on.

The board said Monday that they will have a verdict on the plant at the next meeting.