SYRACUSE — A chemical plant in Syracuse, owned by Toronto–based Chemtrade Logistics Income Fund, is installing a new cleaning system that it says will reduce the nitrogen oxide gases in its air emissions by about 90 percent. 

The Chemtrade plant, located at 1421 Willis Ave., produces sodium nitrite, which it sells to a variety of other industries, according to plant manager Robert Amend. Sodium nitrite is used to preserve some meat products, in the manufacturing of dyes and pigments, and in the vulcanization of rubber, he says.

“It’s really effective in prohibiting corrosion in cast iron and steel,” Amend says of sodium nitrite, adding that much of the equipment used in the plant is still in good condition as a result. The plant produces the chemical compound in a variety of grades and packaging, in both crystalline and solution form, he adds.

Chemtrade is investing more than $4 million in its new cleaning system, which is comprised of a catalytic converter, fans, heat exchangers, and piping, according to Amend. The system, custom-designed for the Syracuse plant, will have a footprint of about 300 square feet.

The plant has multiple buildings, situated on a 15-acre plot, totaling about 260,000 square feet, says Amend. It is staffed by 32 full-time employees.

The cleaning system uses selective catalytic reduction (SCR) to convert most of the plant’s nitrogen oxide gas emissions — comprised of two gases, nitrogen monoxide and nitrogen dioxide — to their water and nitrogen components, according to Amend.

Chemtrade first put the SCR project into motion in 2014, shortly after it acquired the plant in January of that year when it bought General Chemical, the plant’s previous owner, says Amend.

The purchase price for General Chemical, which operated 45 plants and had more than 500 employees at the time Chemtrade acquired it, was $860 million, according to a Chemtrade news release announcing the deal in late 2013.

The SCR cleaning system is expected to be installed and fully operational in the Syracuse plant by the end of 2015.

The cleaning system is a result of Chemtrade’s commitment to the Responsible Care initiative, according to Amend. The initiative is a condition of the company’s membership in the American Chemistry Council.

The Responsible Care initiative is “a global voluntary initiative of the chemical industry and a unique ethic for the safe and environmentally sound management ofchemicals,” Amend explains in an email to CNYBJ, adding that it “also guides companies towards environmental, societal, and economic sustainability.”

Chemtrade was also asked by New York to clean up its emissions in order to be granted a renewal of a state-issued license that allows the company to discharge the nitrogen oxide gases, according to Amend.

The SCR cleaning process will not have a detrimental effect on the efficiency of the plant, he says, adding that it will require continued maintenance, supplies, and utilities to remain operational. Amend declines to disclose those operational costs, or the plant’s financial information.

The Syracuse plant is the only facility in the Western Hemisphere that exclusively produces sodium nitrite, according to Amend. Competing facilities in the country produce the chemical as a byproduct, collect it, and then sell it.

Chemtrade Logistics has more than 70 locations across the globe, according to its website, and about 1,200 employees.

Other than sodium nitrite, Chemtrade Logistics’ facilities produce sulfuric acid, inorganic coagulants for water treatment, liquid sulfur dioxide, sodium hydrosulfite, and phosphorus pentasulfide, in addition to providing spent acid processing services, according to its website.

The Chemtrade Syracuse plant released 15,161 pounds of toxic chemicals into the air or water in 2013, according to the most recent data available from the U.S. EPA toxic release inventory program. The plant was owned by General Chemical that year, prior to its acquisition by Chemtrade.

Chemtrade reported 2015 second-quarter earnings of $338.8 million U.S. (compared to $310.1 million over the same period in 2014), bringing its 2015 total to $664.8 million (versus $576.2 million in 2014). It attributes the improvement primarily to “the positive impact of the stronger U.S. dollar on U.S. dollar denominated revenues,” according to a company news release issued Aug. 12.

Chemtrade Logistics Income Fund is publicly traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange.        

CAMILLUS — Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) says it will work to address the concerns in the Village of Camillus about its property at 1 Green St.

U.S. Senator Charles Schumer (D–N.Y.) drew attention to the longstanding, vacant property on Aug. 17 by holding a news conference in front of the one-story structure with neighbors standing nearby. The senator called it an “eyesore.” 

Neighboring residents told Schumer’s office the property has been in that poor condition for the past 20 years or so.

The website of the Onondaga County Office of Real Property Tax Service lists Verizon New York Inc. as the property owner. The site says the building on the property was built in 1975.

CNYBJ on Aug. 17 contacted Verizon for comment on the matter, and a Verizon spokesman provided the following statement.

“We received Senator Schumer’s inquiry and after looking into the matter informed his office that we will be working through the Village of Camillus to resolve it.”

He did not provide further details on what that would entail and when it would happen.

The phone company used the building originally as a switching station and later for storage, both Schumer and a neighbor said in response to an inquiry from CNYBJ.

The senator said the neighboring residents are “fed up” with the current state of the site. 

 “I today am pledging to them I will do everything I can to get Verizon to clean up this site, take down this building, and put something nice up … a new home or something like that,” Schumer said at the press conference.

In a news release about the situation, Schumer’s office referenced “12 notices and follow-ups of violations citing the poor condition and maintenance of the property.”

A few months ago, village officials decided that they’d “had enough” and reached out to Verizon to see what the company planned to do with the site, Schumer said.

“But Verizon continued to ignore this untamed property,” the Democrat contended.

The residents also wrote letters and tried to contact Verizon by phone but didn’t get a response, according to Schumer. 

Schumer’s office called Verizon on Aug. 14 and noted the firm “didn’t say much to us.” But the senator also figured Verizon is listening because the company mowed the property’s lawn on the morning of the Aug. 17 press event, he added.

The Village of Camillus is asking Verizon to be a “good neighbor and improve the poor condition of this property,” Patricia Butler, mayor of the village, said in her 

remarks to the assembled reporters.

“Yet those pleas continuously seem to go unnoticed,” said Butler.

Besides her role as the village mayor, Butler is also a resident of Green Street, she said.

Schumer’s news release also included a letter he wrote to Lowell McAdam, CEO of Verizon Communications, about the situation.

CICERO — The Fulton Companies — a business based in the Oswego County town of Richland that engineers, manufactures, and sells commercial and industrial heat transfer equipment — is moving its commercial heating division to Onondaga County.

That division, known as Fulton Heating Solutions, Inc. (FHS), plans to shift many of its services to a building it recently acquired in the town of Cicero, situated at 6288 Running Ridge Road, according to Erin Sperry, director of commercial heating products at FHS. The division’s management, engineering, sales, customer service, marketing, and aftermarket service functions are expected to make the move, she says.

More FHS activities will eventually be moved to Cicero, including a product demonstration center sometime in 2016. Sperry says she can’t be more specific on these plans at this time.

The Fulton Companies hopes manufacturing operations will begin in the Cicero facility within five years, according to the minutes of a June meeting of the Cicero planning board.

About 60 employees will transfer to Cicero, Sperry says. The Fulton Companies employs more than 300 people in New York, and about 800 globally, she adds, with facilities in Canada, England, and China.

The Fulton Companies doesn’t have plans to hire more workers, although that could change later this year, according to Sperry.

An added benefit to the Cicero location is the ability to recruit from the large Syracuse workforce, she says. The company was having difficulty recruiting, first, because most Syracuse–area residents don’t want to commute that far, and second, because the company has nearly depleted the local talent around its Richland headquarters.

Company owner, president, and CEO R. Bramley Palm, Jr. — whose grandfather, Lewis Palm, founded the company in 1949 — purchased the Cicero building, according to Sperry.

Palm bought the one-story, 35,000-square-foot building in February 2015, for $1.7 million, according to Onondaga County’s online property records.

Moving much of the FHS services to Cicero is intended to provide some separation between the commercial and industrial elements of the company, and will create additional office and manufacturing space at the company headquarters — situated at 972 Centerville Road in Richland — for other company divisions to grow, according to Sperry.

The Fulton Companies tailors products for several industries, including laundry dry-cleaning, gas processing, and craft brewing.

“Bram [Palm] knew it would be smart to divide the commercial from the industrial because they are so different,” she says.

The two divisions offer different product types, as well as sales and marketing methods.

“There are distinctive features to the commercial product types, such as specialized alloys of stainless steel in the commercial boiler heat exchangers, that is not found in the industrial products,” Sperry explains in an email to the CNYBJ.

In addition, the two divisions have different customization needs. “On the industrial side, Fulton will often not only provide the boilers, but also an engineered 

system to accompany the equipment. This approach is less common in the commercial market,” she says.

No major modifications are planned for the Cicero building. The interior will be partially renovated to update the office space, including the installation of IT  infrastructure.

The Fulton Companies received approval from the Cicero planning board in June to begin working on the building, although interior work in not currently underway, according to Sperry. She declines to say what contractors have been hired, or to provide financial information about the project or the company.

The building’s previous owner was AMM Properties, which was leasing the building to Terax Hair Care, a shampoo manufacturer that has since moved its operations to Florida, according to Marco Musumeci, president of Terax Hair Care.

DeWITT — Liberty Electric Sales Inc., a DeWitt–based manufacturer’s-representative agency, has acquired Empire State Sales Co. of Saratoga Springs.

The transaction closed Aug. 1, says Edward (Ed) McMahon, president and sole owner of Liberty Electric Sales. He declined to disclose the acquisition cost. 

The local firm announced the acquisition in a July 29 news release. McMahon spoke with CNYBJ on Aug. 14.

Liberty Electric Sales operates in a 12,000-square-foot office that the firm owns at 113 Twin Oaks Drive in DeWitt, off Route 298 between Carrier Circle and Military Circle.

Liberty Electric Sales is a manufacturer’s representative (rep) in the electrical; heating; heating, ventilation, and air conditioning; and mechanical industry, according to its website.

The firm focuses on “technical” products for electrical wholesalers and industrial end-users, says McMahon. 

“We represent a lot of leading manufacturers in … electric heat, piping and wire solutions,” he adds. 

When asked what Liberty Electric acquired in the deal with Empire State Sales, McMahon replies, “It’s hard to say with [manufacturer’s] rep firms.”

The acquisition doesn’t involve a customer list because “[both firms] deal with the same people,” says McMahon. But Empire State Sales transferred its representative contracts to Liberty Electric, he adds. 

Manufacturing-representative contracts have a 30-day duration, he says. McMahon explained the motivation behind the deal.

“Whenever you have a rep firm, you need to have a succession plan,” he says. 

Dan Gosier, owner of Empire State Sales, is a “little older” and was the only employee handling outside sales, McMahon says. Gosier also employed two inside sales representatives. 

Liberty Electric Sales employs five outside salespeople, and they’re a “much younger group.” 

In the manufacturing-representative industry, company principals like to have a “long-term plan” in place, says McMahon. “So that [for] their investment in training and investment in the territory … they’ll get a return on it because people are going to be here for a while and they’re younger and little more aggressive.” 

Moving forward

The acquisition discussion started a few months ago. “It happened pretty quickly,” says McMahon.

Gosier will continue as a sales manager in the Saratoga Springs office. 

“He’s going to continue to call on the accounts that he managed while at Empire,” says McMahon. 

Empire, which leases a small office in Saratoga Springs, will retain its name because the two firms focus on different product areas.

Liberty Electric Sales concentrates on electric-heat products. Empire State Sales is a more “service-based” manufacturing representative, focusing on commodity-type products, such as pipe, wire, and fittings.

“Now, we’re going to be able to go to an account and sell them the technical products, along with some of the support products that go along with it,” McMahon adds.

Liberty Electric Sales is servicing more than 500 active customers in New York state, he says, noting the number won’t change that much with the Empire acquisition because their customers are mostly the same companies.

“We have more to sell each one of them now because the lines are combined,” he adds. 

About Liberty

Liberty Electric Sales now employs 12 full-time workers, which includes the three employees who work for Empire State Sales, McMahon says.

As a sales-rep firm, Liberty Electric manages more than $30 million in sales annually, he adds.

The company has 15 product lines it can offer customers, he notes. 

The website for Liberty Electric Sales lists the firms that provide the products. The products come from companies that include Bennettsville, South Carolina–based Marley Engineered Products; Livermore, California–based Construction Electrical Products; and Balluff Inc., a Florence, Kentucky–based sensor maker.

Most of the products eventually go through distribution, he says. 

McMahon’s father launched Liberty Electric Sales in 1987, he says. McMahon has an investment group called the Liberty Group, through which he has also started four additional companies. 

Besides Liberty Electric Sales, McMahon also owns two firms in Boston and two in Florida, he says.

He purchased Liberty Electric Sales from his father “about six years ago,” he adds.