USA: Ravena plant to be renovated

Lafarge has declared that it will spend several hundred million dollars to renovate its Ravena cement plant in Albany County. The revamped factory should be operational again by mid-2016, saving 112 jobs.
State regulators, federal regulators and Lafarge all agreed to the timeline for the work. This is the first fixed timeline the project has had since it was unveiled five years ago when the recession hit.

Lafarge has spent the years since waiting for the economy (and, thus, its business) to recover. The cement producer also needed to obtain state and federal environmental permits, a process that involves rounds of reports and public hearings.

Company officials say they had a stark choice, facing stricter pollution controls from the federal government. Either they would shut down and abandon the location, or gut it and build a massive new kiln to meet the stronger standards.

The cement plant and its quarry sandwich the middle school and high school for the Ravena-Coeymans-Selkirk district, located on Route 9W.