Central Chemical Corp.

History of Central Chemical Corp.
In important ways, the circumstances surrounding Thomas’s entry into the fertilizer business were not propitious. First, Thomas began business near the end of a half-century-long relocation of the fertilizer industry’s center. Though fertilizer use continued to increase in the Mid-Atlantic states and elsewhere during the period from 1870 to 1920, the manufacture of fertilizer began to shift to the Southern states in the late nineteenth century. By 1902, Charleston had replaced Baltimore as the fertilizer capital of the country. The Mid-Atlantic states’ share of total fertilizer use decreased from 34% in 1880 to 14% in 1920. By contrast, in 1920 the South-Atlantic states used about 50% of all fertilizers consumed in the U.S. Thus, Hagerstown could no longer enjoy proximity to the major centers of fertilizer-material production, and, while previously situated between the two highest-fertilizer-use regions of the country, it now found itself on the northern edge of a region that now dwarfed all others.

Second, Thomas’s decision to continue in the practice (apparently favored by Hagerstown companies) of making fertilizer primarily from bone and organic materials came at the start of a rapid increase in the demand for mixed fertilizers, but also at the beginning of a precipitous decline in the use of bone and bone products as a source of phosphorous in fertilizers. With the growing use of potash and phosphate rock, consumption of mixed fertilizers grew from 46% of the total in 1880 to around 70% in 1920. During the period from 1890 to 1910, when Thomas was focusing on his presumably unmixed “dissolved bone” fertilizers, mixed fertilizers were capturing market share.

Furthermore, the period from 1880 to 1920 is also characterized by the decreasing use of organic materials in general. Though organic materials provided about 91% of the total nitrogen in 1900, by 1917 the total nitrogen contribution from organics had dropped to 46.5%. With regard to phosphates, bone meal, dissolved bones and boneblack, and phosphoro-guano use peaked in 1890, but their use dropped to a negligible amount by 1910 as the use of superphosphates from phosphate rock increased dramatically..

Third, even as Thomas had begun his business trading fertilizer for livestock from relatively distant places, the fertilizer industry was increasingly turning to local distribution. Though mid-nineteenth-century fertilizer plants typically were situated in East Coast harbor cities, twentieth-century plants were dispersed to be closer to areas of consumption.

Finally, even though the name “Thomas’ Dissolved Bone” suggests that Thomas produced his own superphosphates initially, the use of bone in the production of superphosphates was on its way out as described above. For all practical purposes, then, Thomas had set his business on the track of the second, smaller type of fertilizer company, which only mixed fertilizer and did not produce superphosphates. For the next 90 years, even when Central Chemical had affiliates across the nation, it would remain in this “smaller” category – relying on large suppliers for its materials. For reasons noted above, this was not a problem at the turn of the century vis-à-vis the larger companies. Starting in the 1890s, however, many agricultural societies began to advocate home mixing of fertilizer materials by farmers. Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, the fertilizer industry fought this effort successfully by insisting on the value of industrial mixing processes and the farmer’s comparative disadvantages in mixing.

Though in its early years, Central Chemical advertised itself as “Exporters – Manufacturers – Importers,” by the 1970s it had become little more than a middle-man between larger suppliers and farmers. It did not import its own materials, but purchased granulated materials from suppliers. There is no evidence that Central Chemical was exporting products out of the country anymore. And its manufacturing capacity consisted of mixing pre-processed granulated materials in various proportions. At this point, its consulting capacity became equally important to its factory processes.

Though Central Chemical and its subsidiaries were taking in a combined $25 million in sales by the late 1970s, an employee remembers that there was always a sense of trouble on the horizon. The vulnerability of a company that adds very little value to its product and relies entirely on contracts with larger suppliers requires no explanation. It appears that not long after Central Chemical became a bulk blender, its large suppliers began pushing their advantages. In the early 70s, Central Chemical’s supplier, Agrico Chemical Company, put pressure on Central Chemical to enter into a long-term contract. When Central Chemical refused, Agrico withheld di-ammonium phosphate and granular triple super phosphate at a time of national shortage in these materials. Central Chemical responded by filing an antitrust lawsuit against Agrico in federal court. For most of the next decade much of the time, resources, and energy of what was still a closely-held corporation would be consumed in this litigation. Ultimately the lawsuit proved unsuccessful.

All of this came at the same time that local, state, federal regulators were investigating the Hagerstown plant for its pesticide-disposal practices. In the 1970s the State of Maryland ordered two separate cleanups of the site; the EPA was just getting started.

Ultimately the push to eliminate the middle man that drove the switch to bulk blending began to turn on the blenders themselves. The larger companies and farmers wised up, and realized that they could both save money by dealing directly with each other. Farmers began buying direct-application materials from the same suppliers used by Central Chemical. By the early 1980s, Central Chemical’s network of fertilizer blenders had contracted substantially. Blending operations like those of the Hagerstown plant could no longer make the case for themselves. Crushed under the weight of increasingly serious environmental liability for its mid-century disposal practices, the Central Chemical Corporation contracted its operations substantially. The Hagerstown plant ceased operations in 1984 and the office headquarters moved from the old Thomas building to an office outside Hagerstown.


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Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Researchers ID more pesticides linked to Parkinson's, gene that increases risk

Published on Feb 4, 2014 - 9:12:59 AM

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By: Kim Irwin, UCLA
Parkinsons-c.jpg
February 4, 2014 - Studies have shown that certain pesticides can increase people's risk of developing Parkinson's disease. Now, UCLA researchers have found that the strength of that risk depends on an individual's genetic makeup, which, in the most pesticide-exposed populations, could increase a person's chance of developing the debilitating disease two- to six-fold.

In an earlier study, published January 2013 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the UCLA team discovered a link between Parkinson's and the pesticide benomyl, a fungicide that has been banned by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. That study found that benomyl prevents the enzyme aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH) from converting aldehydes — organic compounds that are highly toxic to dopamine cells in the brain — into less toxic agents, thereby contributing to the risk of Parkinson's.

For the current study, UCLA researchers tested a number of additional pesticides and found 11 that also inhibit ALDH and increase the risk of Parkinson's — and at levels much lower than they are currently being used, said the study's lead author, Jeff Bronstein, a professor of neurology and director of the movement disorders program at UCLA.

Bronstein said the team also found that people with a common genetic variant of the ALDH2 gene are particularly sensitive to the effects of ALDH-inhibiting pesticides and are two to six times more likely to develop Parkinson's when exposed to these pesticides than those without the variant.

The results of the new epidemiological study appear Feb. 5 in the online issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

"We were very surprised that so many pesticides inhibited ALDH and at quite low concentrations — concentrations that were way below what was needed for the pesticides to do their job," Bronstein said. "These pesticides are pretty ubiquitous and can be found on our food supply. They are used in parks and golf courses and in pest control inside buildings and homes. So this significantly broadens the number of people at risk."

The study compared 360 patients with Parkinson's disease in three agriculture-heavy Central California counties and 816 people from the same area who did not have Parkinson's. The researchers focused their analyses on individuals with ambient exposures to pesticides at work and at home, using information from the California Department of Pesticide Regulation.

In the previous PNAS study, Bronstein and his team had determined the mechanism that leads to increased risk. Exposure to pesticides starts a cascade of cellular events, preventing ALDH from keeping a lid on the aldehyde DOPAL, a toxin that naturally occurs in the brain. When ALDH does not detoxify DOPAL sufficiently, it accumulates, damages neurons and increases an individual's risk of developing Parkinson's.

"ALDH inhibition appears to be an important mechanism by which these environmental toxins contribute to Parkinson's pathogenesis, especially in genetically vulnerable individuals," said study author Beate Ritz, a professor of epidemiology at UCLA's Fielding School of Public Health. "This suggests several potential interventions to reduce Parkinson's occurrence or to slow its progression."

In the current study, the research team developed a lab test to determine which pesticides inhibited ALDH. They then found that those participants in the epidemiologic study who had a genetic variant in the ALDH gene were at increased risk of Parkinson's when exposed to these pesticides. Just having the variant alone, however, did not increase risk of the disease, Bronstein noted.

"This report provides evidence for the relevance of ALDH inhibition in Parkinson's disease pathogenesis, identifies pesticides that should be avoided to reduce the risk of developing Parkinson's disease and suggests that therapies modulating ALDH enzyme activity or otherwise eliminating toxic aldehydes should be developed and tested to potentially reduce Parkinson's disease occurrence or slow its progression, particularly for patients exposed to pesticides," the study states.

The study was funded in part by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (P01ES016732, R01ES010544, 5R21ES16446-2 and U54ES012078), the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NS038367), the Veterans Administration Healthcare System, the Michael J. Fox Foundation, the Levine Foundation, the Parkinson Alliance, the National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship and the Ruth L. Kirschstein Institutional National Research Service Award in Molecular Toxicology (T32ES015457).


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