Lights Out Norlite
Our Mission
Lights Out Norlite is a group of residents and organizations which seeks to raise awareness of, and eliminate, the various negative environmental and health impacts from the operation of the Norlite aggregate production facility and hazardous waste incinerator in Cohoes, NY.
We seek to shut the incinerator down.
In 2022, we officially became a project of the Green Education and Legal Fund, a 501(c)3 organization in the Capital District.
This relationship has enabled us to obtain several funding grants from organizations such as Community Health and Environmental Justice (CHEJ), Ben and Jerry’s Foundation, and Skidmore College to support our work.
We are calling on the NYS Dept. of Environmental Conservation to deny Norlite’s Title V Air Toxics and Hazardous Waste permits. Norlite’s permits expired on December 31, 2021.
Help Support Our Mission
Norlite 101
Norlite is a toxic waste incinerator located in Cohoes, NY. For more than fifty years Norlite has released toxic pollution on the New York Capital Region and beyond. Norlite has been fined repeatedly for violating environmental regulations, including for mercury, heavy metals, VOC’s, and toxic dust emissions.
Saratoga Sites, a public housing complex home to 70 families, is just 400 yards from Norlite’s stacks. Those families are now being relocated because of Norlite’s pollution. Moving the families out of Saratoga Sites apartments will provide them relief, but it will not fix the problem. Norlite is the problem, and more than 51,000 people live downwind of Norlite in Cohoes and the City of Troy.
In October, 2022, the Attorney General of the State of New York filed suit against Norlite because of fugitive toxic dust.
In December of 2022, Lights Out Norlite filed to intervene in this complaint, to make sure that, when it’s all said and done, Norlite is closed forever. VIEW NORLITE’S TOXIC TIMELINE.
In this “Norlite Town Hall meeting IV: Hazardous Waste School” produced on December 16th, 2020 by The Sanctuary for Independent Media in Troy NY
panelists included longtime hazardous waste regulator Dr. Neil Carman, former Clean Air Act administrator Bruce Buckheit, Earthjustice attorney Jim Pew, and Jane Williams from the National Sierra Club Clean Air Team.
The moderator was Hudson Mohawk Magazine correspondent Alexis Goldsmith.
In this “Norlite Town Hall meeting III: Signature Edition” on November 11th, 2020 produced by The Sanctuary for Independent Media in Troy NY.
Panelist featured are Cohoes resident Joe Ritchie from Lights Out Norlite, NYS Assemblymember John T. McDonald and NYS Senator Neil Breslin.
The moderator was Hudson Mohawk Magazine correspondent Corinne Carey.
In this “Norlite Town Hall Meeting II: The Sequel” produced July 23, 2020 by The Sanctuary for Independent Media in Troy NY.
Jane Williams from the National Sierra Club Clean Air Team; Sean Mahar, chief of staff for NYS Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Basil Seggos; and Joe Ritchie, longtime Cohoes resident in the Saratoga Sites apartment complex spoke and answered questions about Norlite at an online panel.
The moderator was Hudson Mohawk Magazine correspondent Corinne Carey.
On June 22, 2020 The Sanctuary for Independent Media in Troy NY organized a panel including Cohoes Mayor William T. Keeler, longtime Saratoga Sites apartment resident Joe Ritchie, Dr. David Carpenter of the Albany School of Public Health, Dr. David Bond from Bennington College, and former EPA Region 2 administrator Judith Enck.
They met to discuss the health impacts of Norlite’s operations in the Capital Region and beyond.
The moderator was Hudson Mohawk Magazine correspondent Corinne Carey.
Upcoming Events
- Join our biweekly organizing meeting. Send a message to norlite-subscribe@lists.mayfirst.org
Take Action
Norlite Timeline
Norlite has been polluting since 1956, and has been cited multiple times over the last few decades for violating the terms of its permits. Learn about the history.
View the TimelineNews and Current Events
December 2022: LON seeks to join AG lawsuit against Norlite
November 2022: NY State Attorney General and DEC file injunction against Norlite to cease hazardous dust emissions
November 2022: Norlite seeks to have NY State’s fugitive dust lawsuit thrown out
October 2022: State of NY and DEC file lawsuit against Norlite over fugitive dust emissions
Independent tests show that dust from Norlite contains razor sharp glass and silica and is an immediate threat to residents. The dust samples were gathered from a nearby attic and car windshield. Norlite’s own Material Safety Data Sheets show that the dust can cause silicosis, a progressive, incurable, and deadly lung disease.
In 2020, the EPA settled with Norlite for years’ worth of permit and Clean Air Act violations, affecting multiple aspects of their operations and resulting in unknown quantities of emissions of dioxans, furans, semi-volatile metals, low-volatility metals, hydrogen chloride and chlorine gas, particulate matter, mercury, chromium, arsenic, and beryllium. These are serious violations in addition to Norlite’s burning 2.4 million pounds of PFAS-laden AFFF in secret for 2 years.
Lights Out Norlite and our sister organization, Saratoga Sites Against Norlite Emissions, firmly maintains that this incinerator is unenforceable, and will continue to spew toxins in our community, in violation of its permits, as it has done for more than three decades.
Media Coverage of Norlite
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Located in Cohoes, Norlite is burning toxic chemicals within a densely populated city and threatening the health of people throughout the entire New York Capital Region and beyond.
