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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Friday, February 27, 2015

Cleanup Pace Quickens at Hagerstown Superfund Site


HAGERSTOWN, MD (AP) The pit where Central Chemical Corp. dumped its waste is hidden, covered with soil to keep toxins from blowing into the nearby neighborhood or washing into streams. 

The buildings where workers mixed DDT, arsenic and other agricultural pesticides and fertilizers have been razed, leaving cracked concrete slabs among the weeds covering the fenced, 19-acre parcel. 

But despite its desolate appearance, the pace of work is quickening at the Superfund site in Hagerstown’s North End. Eighteen years after a construction crew found the dump while digging a sewer line, an analysis of the contamination is nearly done and formulation of a remedy is in sight. 
Eric Newman, remedial project manager for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), said progress was stalled for approximately six years after the EPA added Central Chemical to its list of the nation’s most hazardous waste sites in 1997 while the agency wrangled with the company, its suppliers and customers over how to proceed. 

They eventually agreed on a two-part investigation that has cost the 15 participating companies approximately $6 million, including demolition of the buildings this spring. The companies’ contractor, URS Corp., of Fort Washington, PA, finished a draft of its Phase II report in January and is doing further tests at EPA’s behest to define the extent of groundwater contamination beyond Central Chemical’s boundaries. 

 “We’ve gotten a heck of a lot of information in two years,” Newman said.
“Since February of 2003, we’ve done a dynamite job.” 

After the draft is revised and accepted, possibly by the end of the year, the EPA will propose a cleanup plan, gather public comment and ask the companies to foot the bill for that work as well. URS geologist William G. Murray estimated it could be another two years from now before ground is broken for a cleanup aimed at making the property suitable for the uses a community panel has already selected: light industrial or professional offices. 
David Schwartz, president of Central Chemical, which still owns the land, said he agrees with the proposed uses but it’s too soon to say who might want to build there.
“I think we need to keep an open mind until we get closer to the time and see whether there’s a need for what we want to do,” he said. 

There are no surprises in URS’ 93-page draft report, which The Associated Press obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. The highest concentrations of the dozens of pesticides, solvents, compounds and toxic metals that Central Chemical used or disposed of at the site from the 1930s until 1968 are in the soil. Newman said lesser amounts found in the groundwater pose little risk to humans because there are no nearby drinking-water wells, and the city gets its drinking water from the Potomac River upstream of its confluence with Antietam Creek, which runs through Hagerstown. 

The Antietam and a tributary identified as Marsh Run 2 contain some of the substances linked to Central Chemical, but many of the same substances also were found in the same streams upstream from the plant, making it hard to pinpoint the source, according to the report. 
Many homes in the adjacent Brighton Manor neighborhood have changed hands since the problem became publicly known in 1992. Some new residents said they didn’t know about Central Chemical. Others who did said they weren’t worried about it. 

“It hasn’t concerned me,” said Cecil Howe Sr., a retired auto salesman who moved to the neighborhood four years ago. “The thing’s been there and there’s not much you can do about it.” 
Marvin Clites, a mental health worker, said he bought his two-story home in 2002 for $122,900 — approximately half the price of houses in the nearby Northgate neighborhood. 

“I figure that if something’s in the air, we’re going to die anyway,” he said. 
Home values in Brighton Manor have risen nearly as fast as those in the city as a whole, according to the Washington County Department of Taxation and Assessments. Clites said his was appraised at $169,900 earlier this year. 
Kristin Aleshire, a city councilman who also sits on the community panel that proposed the reuse options for the Central Chemical site, said he’s satisfied with the pace of the cleanup project. 

“I think it’s more important to proceed cautiously. And I don’t think that anyone expects that there would be an expedient process to undo immediately, without taking such precautions, decades worth of potential damage that have been done,” he said. 

Region: Northeast Edition | StoryID: 6350 | 
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