Riverkeeper: The NYS State Department of Environmental Conservation sent a letter to Global Partners LP on Friday informing the energy company that its air quality renewal permit application for the Port of Albany will be considered as an entirely new application, requiring additional information to address issues identified by DEC and restarting the environmental review process.

Global Partners LP owns, controls or has access to one of the largest terminal networks of petroleum products and renewable fuels in the region. Its terminals at the Port of Albany were approved more than four years ago, before many concerns about crude oil shipments came to light, with minimal public awareness, and with no study of environmental impacts.

Riverkeeper’s campaign against unsafe crude oil transportation on and along the Hudson has been calling for a comprehensive environmental review of Global’s operations which present environmental threats not only at and around its Albany facility, but also by the crude oil transport by rail and barge required by Global’s operations that threatens communities and environmental resources including from Lake Champlain and to New York Harbor. For over two years the organization has called for a comprehensive look at both the 2012 permit that allowed a quadrupling of crude oil transport through the facility from 450 million gallons per year to 2.2 billion gallons per year and of the 2013 permit modification application to install seven boilers to facilitate the transfer of heavy tar sands crude from oil trains to river barges. The efforts of Riverkeeper and our partners catalyzed tens of thousands of comments, letters and calls to the DEC calling for the exact steps announced today.  Read more.  (Photo: Kingston Daily Freeman)