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, August 18, 2015

EPA: Firms to pay $14.3M to clean up Central Chemical site in Hagerstown Central Chemical superfund site

EPA: Firms to pay $14.3M to clean up Central Chemical site in Hagerstown Central Chemical superfund site

Federal environmental officials are oversee additional investigative work at the Central Chemical superfund site off Mitchell Avenue in Hagerstown. At the former plant, agricultural pesticides and fertilizers were mixed with inert ingredients to dilute materials for commercial applications.

 Posted on Aug 17, 2015
by Tamela Baker  


PHILADELPHIA — Sixteen companies have reached a $14.3 million settlement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the state of Maryland to stabilize and cap waste and contaminated soil at the Central Chemical Superfund site in Hagerstown, the agency announced Monday.
The companies have also agreed to reimburse $945,000 for past costs, and to reimburse for future costs associated with oversight of the cleanup, the EPA said in a news release.
The consent decree is subject to a 30-day public-comment period and court approval.
The 19-acre site on Mitchell Avenue was home to Central Chemical Corp., where the company blended agricultural pesticides and fertilizers from the 1930s to the 1980s. Raw pesticides manufactured elsewhere were blended with inert materials to produce commercial-grade products.
Contaminants found in soil, groundwater, surface water and sediment, as well as in the tissue of fish caught downstream from the site, include arsenic, lead, benzene, aldrin, chlordane, DDD, DDE, DDT, dieldrin, and methoxychlor, according to EPA.
"The settlement will fund a protective long-term solution to safely contain contaminated soils and waste on site,” EPA Regional Administrator Shawn M. Garvin said in a statement. “This remedy will protect the groundwater from further contamination by the wastes in the soil.”
The EPA's cleanup plan calls for stabilizing a former waste lagoon, where most of the waste material was contained, capping contaminated soil and installing a groundwater-treatment system. Cleanup of groundwater is still being investigated, the agency said.

The companies involved in the settlement include Arkema Inc., Bayer Cropscience LP, FMC Corp., Honeywell International Inc., Lebanon Seaboard Corp., Montrose Chemical Corp. of California, Occidental Chemical Corp., Olin Corp., Rohm and Haas Co., Rhone-Poulenc, Shell Oil Co., Syngenta Crop Protection LLC, The Chemours Co. FC, Union Carbide Corp., Wilmington Securities Inc. and 21st Century Fox America Inc.
The site was placed on the Superfund list in 1997. EPA outlined an initial cleanup plan in 2009. Many of the same companies agreed to underwrite an additional cleanup study in 2013.
EPA spokeswoman Terri White said Monday that she was unsure when actual cleanup would begin, but that remedies were already being planned.
EPA's goal is to clean up the sites and then work with local officials to return them to viable use, but those uses could be limited, White said.
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Tamela Baker is a reporter for The Herald-Mail. She can be reached via email at tbaker@herald-mail.com.
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