By James DeWeese
Eon Labs, a Lake Success, N.Y.-based drug manufacturer with a plant on North Conduit Avenue in Laurelton, has applied for a state permit to raise the limit on its emissions of volatile organic compounds, including ethyl and isopropyl alcohol, and to use hydrochloric acid in the manufacturing of a generic pain-management medication. At a town hall meeting Saturday with members of the Concerned Citizens of Laurelton Group, company officials said Eon had applied for the permit after it realized that it already has exceeded the 25-ton cap on yearly emissions. William Eversgerd, Eon's vice president of plant operations, said the airborne emissions pose no health threat and that hydrochloric acid would be neutralized before being dumped into the sewer system.But Roger McMillan, chairman of Concerned Citizens' environmental committee, said that safety of the some of the chemical compounds remained unclear to many members of the community. He also said he worried the plant's activities could have an adverse economic impact on the community by lowering property values.”Whenever you have hazardous materials or any type of plant within a community, your real estate becomes depressed,” McMillan said. “I don't believe anyone wants to be in a position where their investment goes down.”Eversgerd said he would be willing to pay for an outside environmental consultant to review the plant's emissions to determine if they posed a health hazard, which he maintained they do not. He also said the company was investing in ultra-efficient “scrubbers” designed to trap and eliminate 98 percent of the plant's emissions of ethyl and isopropyl alcohol.Eversgerd said the plant, which employs 250 people, needs the additional capacity to continue producing enough of the generic painkiller, which another manufacturer had stopped making. He said the drug would only be produced at the Laurelton facility while Eon, which is slated to be purchased by European conglomerate Novartis, waits for approval from the federal Food and Drug Administration to transfer operations to another facility in Wilson, N.C. The process could take anywhere from months to years.The emissions permit is by no means a done deal, state regulators said.The state Department of Environmental Conservation has received the permit request from Eon, but has not yet deemed it complete, a spokeswoman said. If and when the permit request is finalized, she said the DEC would allow 30 days for public comment before forwarding the request to the federal Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA would hold its own 45-day public comment hearing, before making its final recommendation to the DEC, which ultimately must sign off on the request.The spokeswoman said the DEC would take into account the plant's outstanding violation for exceeding its emissions cap.Kim Francis, president of the Concerned Citizens, said residents were upset by what was perceived as a calculated effort by Eon to avoid public debate by advertising an earlier public hearing only in the Spanish-language paper Hoy. She said her group would continue to investigate the matter.”I would hope that Eon Labs would be working with the civics in the community in the future,” said Barbara Brown, a member of the East Queens Alliance.Reach reporter James DeWeese by e-mail at news@timesledger.com or by phone at 718-229-0300, Ext. 157.
