Gerson Wants Law Changing Fuel Movement At 60 Hudson

By Nick Pinto
POSTED DECEMBER 1, 2007

City Councilman Alan Gerson late last month announced draft legislation that would prohibit transferring fuel by hand into indoor storage tanks. If passed, the law would change the way fuel is  handled at 60 Hudson Street, a “telecom hotel” that nearby residents have battled for years. The building stores large amounts of diesel fuel to supply its backup generators.

One of several buildings that house critical telecommunications infrastructure, 60 Hudson Street was granted a variance in 2005 by the city’s Buildings Department that relaxed limits on the amount of fuel that can be stored on above-ground floors. The variance also allowed the building to fill the tanks by hand from containers trundled across the floor from loading docks, instead of piping the fuel in from an underground storage tank as the building code requires.

Deborah Allen, a leader of Neighbors Against NOISE, a group founded in response to noise and emissions coming from 60 Hudson, called the legislation critical.

“A building like this is quite dangerous,” Allen said. “The possibility of a fire is awesome, and the consequences of a fire are awesome. When 7 World Trade went down on Sept. 11, it had 40,000 gallons of fuel in it, and it burned for days. This building has a great deal more fuel in it—80,000 gallons. And yet it has never had a total fire assessment.”

Brian Maddox, a spokesman for the building, said the building is safe and code compliant, with two-hour fire-resistant walls floor to ceiling in each room, a fire alarm command station and a fire safety director. Emergency action plans have been submitted and approved by the city, he said.

Maddox said the safety issue is a red herring that obscures neighbors’ real objection to 60 Hudson Street.

“The building is loud, there’s no doubt about it,” Maddox said. “People don’t like that, and then they bring in the safety issue. But the side effect of that is that it scares people when there isn’t any reason to be scared.”

Gerson dismissed that suggestion.

“We all lived through 9/11,” he said. “To say that the people here are not first and foremost concerned about a diesel fire in a building with twice as much fuel as burned at 7 World Trade Center reflects a real lack of concern and connection to the community.”

Gerson has other bills pending in City Council that would affect 60 Hudson St., calling for greater encasement of diesel tanks, stricter standards for ventilation noise levels, and a comprehensive building-wide safety plan.

Gerson’s said he expects these bills to be taken up by City Council early in the coming year.

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