Spaulding Fibre

Images by Kathy

Spaulding Fibre was definitely one of the best places we ever explored. Not only was the building accessibly and open, it was graffiti free and only showed signs of natural decay, unlike many other locations we have visited where everything was slowly looted. It was located in a particularly nasty part of Tonawanda NY near public town-home projects and giant liquor stores. It sat on 43 acres and occupied 860,00 sf of space in more than 24 separate buildings almost all of which had access to one another internally. You could walk in and not been seen for most of the day and move from the office tower, the laboratory, loading area, the press sections and so forth.

Images by Jan

Spaulding Fibre made all types of boards, weatherboards, transformer boards, Bakelite (as Spauldite) and vulcanized fibre and fibreglass tubes. Spaulding Fibre had its roots in Townsend Harbour, Massachusetts when Jonas and Waldo Spaulding formed the company in 1873. The company expanded in Milton and North Rochester, New Hampshire. In 1911 the brothers established a vulcanized fibre operation in Tonawanda (the one featured here) which was built on a farm at 310 Wheeler Street where production began April 1, 1912 with 40 employees. It was quite a large facility then as the daily capacity at the plant was 5 tons of fibre sheeting and one ton of fibre tubing per day. In 1924 a continuous vulcanized fibre making line was built. In  1927 the name of the company changed from J.Spaulding and Sons to the Spaulding Fibre Company. In the 1930’s the company introduced a pseudo bakelite product called Spauldite. Once the last Spaulding brother died in 1955, Spaulding Fibre Company became a part of a charitable trust set up by Huntley Spaulding and his only sister who died shortly afterwords. In 1956 another large expansion took place that doubled the size of the paper mill and the vulcanized fibre making capacity of the plant. The head office moved operations to the Wheeler street plant. Another product line was added sometime in the 1960’s called Filawound which was a fiberglass tube product. At this point the plant covered 610,000 sq feet (almost the size it was when we visited) and employed almost 1500 people.

In 1966 after the company enjoyed great profits and expansion the charitable trust sold off the company to Monogram industries and slowly the company started to decline. In 1984 Spaulding was sold again to Nortek and in 1988 Nortek changed the company name to Spaulding Composites. Spaulding Composites closed the Tonawanda plant  on August 24, 1992 and it subsequently sat empty suffering the ravages of time and the elements. Demolition work did not start until late 2006 shortly after we visited the space and spent a whole 12 hours inside. One of the more interesting highlights of the demolition was the “Spaulding Fibre” stack getting demolished here. A whole secondary industry has also developed around class action lawsuits for the former employees of the plant.

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Aerial View of Spaulding Fibre

Some other tasty highlights I found on the City of Tonawanda’s web page shed more light on the timing of the sale of the company as well as its bankruptcy…

1930 to 1972 - Sludge Settling Ponds were excavated into native soils to settle grinding waste from the Spauldite tube department.

1960s - A transformer allegedly exploded outside the northwest portion of the plant, releasing PCB transformer oil to the ground surface.

1960s to 1970s - The Therminol Building housed a Therminol heat exchange unit utilized during SpaulditeR production. Oil containing 85% PCBs was the heat exchange media of the Therminol Unit. At time of system failure, PCB oils were discharged to the grounds adjacent to the Therminol Building or to floor drains discharging to the K-Line storm sewer serving the northwest portion of the facility.  This oil contaminated the waste and fill in two of the sludge settling lagoons.

Fall of 1977 through September 1978 - The Laminant Dust Landfill was utilized by Spaulding for the disposal of approximately forty (40) tons of fiberglass, asbestos, cellulose and resin dusts.

February through September 1978 -  The Resin Drum Landfill was utilized by Spaulding for the disposal of 750 drums of resin wastes.

Between 1983 and 1986 - Wet paper sludge was spread over a 5,000 square feet area (the Paper Sludge Application Area) south of the plant building and allowed to dry prior to disposal. Contaminants released from this practice impacted area soils.

August 1985 - Spaulding excavated the Zinc Chloride Sludge and Drum Landfill. This area was a 60 cubic yard landfill located beneath the plant floor inside the main plant building and contained zinc chloride sludge contaminated with cadmium and lead, drummed lab chemicals and resin solvent mixtures. The pit was backfilled and a new concrete floor installed over it;

1985 - Spaulding removed lead contaminated zinc hydroxide sludge from the Zinc Hydroxide Sludge Storage Tank. The sludge was disposed of at a permitted off-site secure landfill. The storage tank and surrounding area were decontaminated with high pressure water.

In the late 1980s - A consultant under contract with the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) conducted a RCRA Facility Assessment (RFA) at the site. This assessment identified 36 Solid Waste Management Units (SWMUs) and several potential Areas of Concern (AOCs).

1992 - Manufacturing at the facility is terminated and the company files for bankruptcy;

September 1992 to February 1993 - Spaulding initiated decommissioning activities at the site in August 1992 following plant closure. The majority of these activities were completed by February 1993 with the remaining decommissioning activities completed by mid 1995. These activities are documented in the Plant Decommissioning Final Report dated August 1995;

Early 1993 - Spaulding constructed an on-site water treatment system to treat PCB contaminated water from the Spauldite basement sump, the on-site K-Line storm sewer and other waste waters generated on-site;

September 1994 - A permanent on-site water treatment system is moved into its current location;

October 1994 - The portion of the K-Line sewer impacted by PCB contamination was isolated from the remaining K-Line system and is pumped to the on-site water treatment system and discharged to an off-site storm sewer;

October 21, 1994 - An out-of-service transformer was vandalized, resulting in a spill of PCB transformer oil. The area was subsequently excavated, with the contaminated soils and concrete placed in roll-offs for off-site disposal;

July 21, 2004 - Phase 1 of the NYSDEC’s IRM PCB contaminated soil removal action in OU2 begins;

March 25, 2005 - Phase 1 of the NYSDEC’s IRM PCB contaminated soil removal action in OU2 is completed;

June 6, 2005 - Phase 2 of the IRM soil removal action in OU2 begins;

June 25, 2005 - The City of Tonawanda and Erie County submitted an application to the Department for funding under the ERP program.  The application requests $3,600,000 for the demolition of the plant buildings ($3,000,000) and remedial investigation ($600,000) of areas of the site not investigated as part of the previous work conducted by the Department and Spaulding;

March 2007 - NYSDEC completes Phase 2 of a IRM soil removal action to address highly contaminated PCB contaminated surface soils.  The work completed during this phase included: demolitions of concrete building pads, excavation and disposal of PCB contaminated soil, cleaning of storm sewer lines and removal of contaminated debris.  Total of cost of this work to date is approximately $3,000,000,

Additional reading

Tonawanda News; Spaulding Fibre: From Prosperity to Decline; Dave Hill; January 16, 2008 
ouster’s Daily Democrat; “Post Civil War Growth Sets Stage For Spaulding Fibre’s Huge Success”; Spaulding Fibre 100th Anniversary Supplement; 1873-1973