Karen and I went on a one of our mid-week jaunts to Albany and the NYS Museum. The museum is quite large with more than one visit’s worth of exhibitions about NY and its history. As a longtime New Englander with a somewhat Boston-centric view of history, it is obvious that I need to do a bit of work on the Dutch phase of colonial NY.

Along the way towards the exit, we came on an exhibit about logging in the Adirondacks. This included some samples of saw blades. I am not sure when carbide inserts came into use, but there was one saw with carbide inserts manufactured by Simonds on display (see image to left). This is a familiar name to the Fitchburg world of my youth. My father did business with Simonds Saw & Steel when he was President of Fitchburg Machine and Screen Plate Co.. He had a large lathe with a faceplate that was seven to eight feet in diameter on which circular saw blanks were cut. The pictured saw was doubtlessly not cut on this machine since it is only four feet in diameter or so.

On searching for links to Simonds Saw & Steel discovered that the company not only still exists as Simonds International but also has a history that I knew nothing of. Namely, there was a specialty steel plant in Lockport, NY (north-northeast of Buffalo, NY) established in 1911. There were a number of other plants in the US and Canada, but this plant became involved in the post-WWII development of nuclear munitions.

Here is a photo of production at the Lockport plant and notes from the Lockport-NY.com website at this URL (http://www.lockport-ny.com/Pictures/views13.htm). I reproduce it here because the website appears to be closing down.

Lou’s Views
….Lockport’s Old Photo Album

It May Not Have Been Radioactive…But It Was HOT!
Remembering Production At Simonds Saw & Steel Mill!

At one time Simonds Saw & Steel Company employed about 900 workers in its Ohio Street complex in Lockport.  The steel and metal plant was in operation from 1910 through 1978.  Its facilities were sold out to Guterl Special Steel Corp of Pittsburgh, PA in 1978 and that company went into bankruptcy in 1982.  The Lockport plant closed in 1983.  A segment of the company’s property (non-contaminated with hazardous waste) was purchased by Allegheny Ludlum (with financing backed by Niagara County IDA bonds) in 1984 for $9.5-million at a bankruptcy sale.   Operations continue there today with employment estimated at under 100.   Allegheny melts and refines “specialty metals.”

The picture at the left was of the steel operation at Simonds in its heyday.

The Simonds family started the business in 1910 making cutting devices such as saws and knives.  It gradually moved into specialty steel production.

From 1948 to about 1956 the company did work for the United States government fabricating about 35-million pounds of uranium and about 40,000 pounds of thorium—both radioactive metals.  The work was extremely profitable for the Simonds operation and much of the details were conveniently covered in secrecy for “national security considerations.”  But the workers knew of the types of material they were working with and that it had “some degree” of radioactivity.  Current reports indicate workers will never informed of the level of radioactivity or of the dangers of chronic exposure.  Nor were they adequately protected, reports say,   from the dust generated by the operation.

The company didn’t disclose publicly that waste from the operation was being dumped on site.  It wasn’t until many years after the Simmonds family sold their stock (in 1965) and bailed out that the liabilities left behind became known.

As with many hazardous waste sites there have been enough property transfers along the line to make the question of  payment for cleanup a legal matter.   The Simmonds family appears to be fairly well insulated from current claims on their collective fortunes to help pay for the cleanup.  The Orange County investment company (Shelter Rock Investors Corp) which bought the Simmond stock and operated the company until its sale to Guterl, also appears to have sheltered itself from paying for cleanup.  With Guterl bankrupt, that appears to mean that the taxpayers of Lockport, New York State, or the United States are left holding the bag —- estimated to cost millions of dollars. (9/9)

As usual, the rich get richer and, in this case, also stay healthier.

There is also a  website devoted to the residual pollution from this plant, Simonds Saw & Steel, The US Atomic Weapons Program, and the Myth of “Practically Innocuous” Radiation.