Tioga is taking a preemptive step in the fight for a petrochemicals plant, with an air-quality study it announced on Thursday, Jan. 16. 

The city's Economic Development group commissioned the study with Stantech. It concludes the city's air had plenty of room for the emissions typical of a petrochemicals plant.

Such a study would normally be on the to-do list for a petrochemical company that's assessing a location, but Economic Developer Dennis Lindahl said Tioga decided to cross that $30,000 step off the list, since the community already has one, noticeable flare at the Hess gas plant. 

"Once in a while we get what I call 'tire kickers' coming through, different people who are interested in different levels of business", Lindahl explained. "We've had a fair amount of industrial inquiries with power generators, natural gas production, refining and the like, and there was concern that maybe because of the Hess flare we don't have enough room in our atmosphere for the carbon dioxide (from a petrochemicals plant)." 

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