Permission to build a facility producing one-time-use plastic food containers was granted by the Town of Lockport Industrial Development Agency on Thursday. The board of directors also approved, on a 4-2 vote, a 15-year Payment In Lieu Of Taxes agreement with SRI CV Plastics providing sales tax and mortgage recording tax exemption on the new facility.
“I think every member of the Lockport IDA board made a very thorough, conscious consideration of the application. I’m glad we got this opportunity to bring jobs to the manufacturing sector of Lockport,” the company’s attorney, Terry Burton, said afterward.
The facility will be built on two acres in the Lockport Industrial Park. The design will be drafted in the next year and groundbreaking will commence as soon as it’s done, assuming the town planning board approves the site plan, Burton said. Construction will take between 12 and 18 months, he added.
Burton said he researched the field and found a video in which a plastics-producing machine was shown without fumes or any noise accompanying its production of bottle caps.
“There were no white masks on anyone, this was at a trade show,” he said.
The owners of SRI CV Plastics are also 50% owners of SIVA Powers America Inducement, which is opening a wind turbine assembly facility in the town industrial park. Burton said that project is now in the site plan design stage.
“There’s considerable setback for the wind turbine that will be on the site,” he said. “It’s very tall. If it were to fall, they want to make sure it doesn’t hit anything.”
Current obstacles for the wind turbine facility are drainage-linked. Possible remedies are a retention pond or an underground storage area to deal with the flow of water.
Lori Robinson, president of the local League of Women Voters, attended the Thursday meeting and said she’s disappointed with the board’s decision on the plastics manufacturing facility, especially the subsidies it’s granting.
“The idea that they’re making a profit … why off of taxpayers backs?” she said.
Margaux Valenti of Buffalo-Niagara Waterkeeper said that organization will continue to be “concerned about the negative impacts of water pollution from our plastics being manufactured locally. and we’ll continue to follow this through the planning board and site plan process.”
