NYC mayor tours Pratt paper mill threatened by building emissions law

New York Mayor Eric Adams said his administration is working toward ensuring the Pratt paper mill in Staten Island is not affected by Local Law 97 as he toured the mill Tuesday with Global Chairman Anthony Pratt and City Councilman David Carr.

According to a report from silive.com, Adams described the tour as a “really good visit” and said he and his administration are “going to make sure that we’re not doing things that hurt businesses.”

Carr introduced Local Law 97 to be included in the Climate Mobilization Act, and the law was passed in April 2019 as part of then-Mayor Bill de Blasio’s New York City Green New Deal. The legislation states that most buildings larger than 25,000 square feet will be required to meet new energy efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions limits by 2024, with stricter limits being phased in through 2050.

The city of New York says Local Law 97 generally covers, with some exceptions:

• buildings that exceed 25,000 gross square feet;
• two or more buildings on the same tax lot that together exceed 50,000 square feet; and
• two or more buildings owned by a condo association that are governed by the same board of managers and that together exceed 50,000 square feet.

Currently, the city lists several buildings as being exempt from the law, including an industrial facility primarily used for the generation of electric power or steam, a city building and buildings that participate in a project-based federal housing program.

The silive.com report says that if the effort to amend the law is successful, the list would include buildings that produce 100-percent-recycled paper products from 100-percent-recycled paper to those exempt.

The Staten Island paper mill opened in 1997 and is the largest industrial manufacturing facility in New York City. During an announcement of a new wastewater pretreatment system in 2021, the city described the mill as “the primary destination and processor for recycled paper collected by the city’s department of sanitation.”

“What we do here is just unbelievable,” the paper mill’s General Manager Muneer Ahmad said to local New York media. “What [Adams] saw is undeniable. The mayor’s going to work through it. We don’t know what the answer is going to be.”