Upstate New York Residents Question Environmental Quality of Legacy Site

By: Duane Craig

Regardless of what Watertown, N.Y. residents might want, the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation says it won’t be doing any more environmental testing at the former New York Air Brake site, according to this article.

Besides residents, public officials are also concerned about high cancer rates and other illnesses that affect the north side of that community. Of increasing concern, is the possibility of vapor intrusion into nearby homes from high levels of chemicals that have made their way into the soils beneath the homes. DEC says it won’t be monitoring any indoor air quality in the homes, however monitoring does continue at the site every year.

Reassurances from the DEC largely fell on deaf ears at a recent neighborhood meeting that was also attended by environmental activist Erin Brockovich. One resident who orchestrated the meeting has been disabled by a neurological disease and another resident who attended claimed he remembers dumping chemicals from the facility’s operations.

Those operations started in 1876 when Eames Vacuum Brake Co. was founded as a vacuum break manufacturer. It was making a new kind of pneumatic brake for railroads operating in the area, according to this historical account. In 1919 the company had 7,000 employees making horse-drawn cannons and then during World War II it was busy making tanks and military hardware. General Signal Corp. bought the operations in 1967 and by 1980 had 2,200 employees making parts for aerospace and defense contracts, heavy machinery and farm equipment. The business’ makeup gets a little murky after that as a portion of it was purchased by a German company that eventually moved its operations to North Charleston, S.C. Other portions of the business still owned by General Signal continued to operate in the area as a foundry and maker of railroad car brakes.

General Signal admitted in 1988 that it disposed of toxic chemicals in a landfill on the site. Ten years of testing and cleanup followed, so that today, drainage from the landfill collects in a pond where the water is treated before it is released, according to this article. At one time, toxic chemicals such as polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, as well as trichloroethylene, or TCE, were present in two creeks that flow nearby. People in the area wonder today how much of those materials remain in the soils and continue to migrate to adjacent lands.

By: Duane Craig

Data supplied to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for its Toxic Release Inventory shows a 30 percent reduction in chemical releases to the environment since 2001. The agency, however, says the database provides only a snapshot of the pollution, that it doesn’t cover all toxic chemicals and that it doesn’t cover all sectors of the economy.

Perhaps more troubling, the quantities of chemicals being reported are provided by the companies that release them, and many times they are just estimates. This is a classic case of the foxes guarding the hen houses, and there is ample evidence, reported here and elsewhere, that the Toxic Release Inventory tells an unreliable story about the amount of chemical pollution being released by companies. In one example, a facility in New York State was releasing benzene into the environment at rates 30 times higher than reported to the TRI.

While the overall releases were estimated to be down nationwide, many regions, states and localities experienced increases in toxic releases. For example, according to this report, Oregon had a 20 percent increase in releases from 2009 through 2010. Illinois saw a 10 percent increase in the pounds of toxins released in that state from 2009 to 2010, according to this report.

Passing the Roadway Salt

By: Duane Craig

What happens to all the salt that's spread on roadways in northern climes to melt ice? Well, one place it appears to be ending up is in drinking water wells. Not only that, but the places where the salt is stored are also on the radar as potential groundwater contaminators, according to a report in the Watertown Daily Times.com.

Road salt contaminating groundwater

In Orleans, New York, residents and property owners are still waiting for the town's department of public works to coordinate water well testing with the state's department of transportation and it looks like the process of identifying the contaminated wells will be delayed another month. But, time probably won't make much difference at this point. According to one observer, contamination from the salt storage barn along I-81 first came to light in 2002 but salt has been used on roads for more than 60 years.

In this case wells within a one mile radius of the salt barn will be tested. From Collins Landing to Seaway Avenue and beyond even perhaps to Grass Point State Park and Fishers Landing, the legacy of road maintenance extends well beyond the roads.

It was New York's neighbor to the east, New Hampshire, that first adopted a "general policy" of using salt on roadways. That year, the winter of 1941-42, about 5,000 tons of salt were used across the United States on wintry roads. However, as the highway system expanded, so did salt use until in 1970, 10 million tons were being used each winter, according to this paper.

NYC's Newtown Creek Declared Superfund Site

September 27, 2010 - The Environmental Protection Agency today declared toxic Newtown Creek a federal Superfund site after a series of soil and water samples were tested over a three-month period in 2009. Superfund sites are former industrial areas so polluted they are determined to need federal funding for cleanup. The creek, which serves as the border between Queens and Brooklyn, joins the Superfund list as one of seven added today by the EPA.

Testing revealed the presence of pesticides, metals, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). PCBs are thought to cause a range of health issues in humans, and VOCs can cause respiratory, allergic, or immune problems.

Citing the toxic site as one of the most polluted water bodies in the country, officials including local Congress members Anthony Weiner and Nydia Velazquez pushed the EPA to test the waterway, which flows partly under the north end of Bushwick as English Kills.

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Dirty NY Land Costs a Pile

September 4, 2010 - The city is spending at least another $4 million on its new public works campus on Foster Avenue after discovering a massive amount of contamination on the property.

City officials anticipated they would have to excavate fuel-soaked soil beneath its old public works buildings and garages as part of the original $21 million project.

But the extent of the contamination, mostly caused by long-buried fuel tanks, dwarfed expectations. Fuel and fuel-based oil was found 17 to 18 feet beneath the ground's surface to the tune of 41,000 tons of contaminated earth, said Commissioner of the Office of General Services Carl Olsen. Seven fuel tanks were unearthed, two of which were surprises.

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Environment Groups Cite Lansing, NY Power Plant For Coal Ash Pollution

September 9, 2010 - Near one power plant in New Mexico, sheep and cattle ranchers have reported losing hundreds of livestock who drank polluted groundwater. In a Montana town, people have been sickened by drinking water contaminated with high levels of sulfate and boron, the same metals discharged into groundwater by a nearby plant.

And in McAdoo, Pa., federal health officials have confirmed a rare bone marrow cancer cluster in a town near several plants and a waste dump, though federal officials haven't either confirmed or denied a link between the cancers and the plants.

These aren't incidents taking place close to natural gas drilling sites using new hydraulic fracturing techniques, but rather are near decades-old and still functioning coal-fired power plants, which provide roughly half of America's electricity.

One Tompkins County coal-based power plant, AES Cayuga in Lansing, was among 39 across the country cited by three national environmental groups in a new report on groundwater pollution caused by coal ash.

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TCE Cleanup of Former NY IBM Facility Progressing

August 25, 2010 - Contamination cleanup efforts near the former IBM facility in Endicott are progressing ahead of schedule, but there is still plenty of work to do, state and IBM officials said Wednesday.

The company and the state Department of Environmental Conservation gave presentations on the remediation process to about 20 people during a public meeting at Union-Endicott High School.

IBM has been held responsible for the cleanup of trichloroethylene (TCE) pollution surrounding its former facility on North Street. TCE is a cleaning solvent used heavily by industry decades ago, and the pollution stretches into a large part of the village.

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NY Schools Treated for PCB Still Show Signs of Contamination

August 19, 2010 - Three schools that were treated for PCB contamination in the past year still contain PCB amounts that are higher than federal guidelines for what is acceptable, the Department of Education said.

The results of the tests on the schools—PS 199 in Manhattan, PS 178 in the Bronx and PS 309 in Brooklyn—are part of an agreement between the DOE, the city's School Construction Authority and the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

PCB, or polychlorinated biphenyls, is considered a harmful material, but the EPA said that the potential presence of PCBs in schools and buildings should not be a cause for alarm. The three schools were the only ones of the more than 1,500 schools tested in New York City as part of the three-agency agreement.

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Lawsuit Over Contamination of NY Wells is Halted

August 8, 2010 - A lawsuit brought by homeowners who contend their properties were contaminated by chemicals dumped by the Hopewell Precision sheet metal factory has been withdrawn, a member of the homeowners' group said.

Debra Hall, president of the Hopewell Junction Citizens for Clean Water, said lawyers retained to bring the suit had determined such an action was "not economically feasible."

Hall said the attorneys, Gerry Williams of Philadelphia and Ellen Relkin of New York City, sent a letter to the homeowners' group saying they had determined Hopewell Precision did not have sufficient assets to cover "the extraordinary cost to get to a verdict" in a civil trial.

Attempts to reach officials at Hopewell Precision on Friday were unsuccessful.
Federal environmental officials determined about 20 homes in the neighborhood, most of them on Creamery Road, had wells contaminated by the chemical trichloroethylene or TCE. The homeowners contend the TCE had been dumped by Hopewell Precision in the 1970s. The EPA in 2003 provided funding for water and air filtration systems in the affected residents' homes.

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Brooklyn Neighborhood On Toxic Waterway

June 2, 2010 - “There’s no place in Brooklyn, or in New York City, that feels kind of more pleasant than being right here, which is odd given that that is a toxic waterway,” said Jennifer Prediger, a producer of environmental videos who lives in nearby Carroll Gardens. “But it’s actually quite lovely. It’s the loveliest toxic waterway I’ve ever spent time on.”

In the course of its roughly 150-year history, the Gowanus Canal has been called many things, but it’s fair to say “lovely” is probably not one of them. Now, however, the Gowanus micro-neighborhood — bounded by the gentrifying brownstone districts of Carroll Gardens, Boerum Hill and Park Slope — is enjoying its moment in the summer sun, drawing the city’s hipsters to its art galleries and rock-climbing gyms, its nightclubs and rooftop film series. The half-empty warehouses and semi-derelict factories — for so long seen as post-industrial blight — now give Gowanus a special cultural edge, like a miniature Baltimore or Detroit (with terrifying pollution substituting for terrifying crime).

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Brooklyn Park Poses Health Risk

May 7, 2010 - The grassy fields of a park in the gentrifying Red Hook section of Brooklyn are contaminated with PCBs at a level 110 times what New York environmental agencies consider safe, according to court records filed in a lawsuit against bankrupt Chemtura Corp.

Linked to liver cancer, low birth-weight and loss of motor skills, PCBs pose a threat to park visitors and nearby residents, said Judith Schreiber, chief scientist in the state attorney general’s environmental bureau.

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New York Business Designated Toxic Waste Site

April 22, 2010 - The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has placed the Rosendale Citgo Station property at Route 32 and Madeline Lane on the Registry of Inactive Hazardous Waste Disposal Sites as a Class 2 site. The classification of a Class 2 site, according to the state agency, means the site presents a considerable threat to public health and/or the environment.

From 1960 to 1970, the site operated as a chemical company that dyed clothing. From 1970 to 1979 an automotive repair garage operated there and from 1979 to 1994 various gas stations were open for business. The present-day Citgo gas station has operated at the site since 1994.
DEC spokesperson Wendy Rosenbach said that, in her experience, this is an unusual situation.
"It's odd that an active gas station is in this classification," Rosenbach said.

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South Buffalo, NY residents remain bitter after city settled claims

December 1, 2009 - Residents in Hickory Woods have their checks from City Hall now, and some are packing up and leaving the South Buffalo neighborhood built on contaminated land. Most of them, even the ones who are staying, will tell you that what remains is not just a neighborhood, but a legacy of illness, death and deep personal loss.

For those who are staying at Hickory Woods, money is just one piece of a larger plan for returning the neighborhood to normalcy. They also want the city to complete environmental cleanup so that the neighborhood won't continue to suffer from image problems and subpar real estate values.

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Minor Radiation Leak at Three Mile Island

November 27, 2009 -

The operators of Three Mile Island should have notified the public sooner about a relatively minor radiation leak that nevertheless raises troubling concerns.

Gov. Rendell had every reason to blast the Exelon Corp. for a five-hour delay in informing state emergency officials about the incident Saturday.

The biggest reason: Three Mile Island is forever linked to a near disaster - the 1979 partial meltdown that occurred at the plant's sister reactor, Unit 2, which remains shut down.

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ExxonMobil ruled liable for well toxins in New York

October 20, 2009 - ExxonMobil was ordered to pay $105 million for contaminating ground water in Queens with a gasoline additive. The city sued ExxonMobil for knowlingly contaminating the ground water and ignoring warnings not to use MTBE in areas that use ground water for drinking water.

Mayor Bloomberg said "Our water supply is one of our most vital resources - and we will work to protect it and go after those who damage it"

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TCE contamination found in basements northwest of plume in New York

October 17, 2009 - Nearly seven years after plumes of industrial solvent were found wafting into basements in Endicott, state officials are still finding homes contaminated by similar pollution in neighborhoods to the north.

Contractors working for the state Department of Environmental Conservation are installing pollution-blocking equipment on about 25 more structures affected by TCE pollution in the June Street area, a residential neighborhood west of Nanticoke Avenue. TCE was first found in the June Street area more than two years ago.

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Pollution an enduring legacy at old ICBM sites

October 10, 2009 - As U.S. Air Force officials marked the 50th anniversary of the deployment of nuclear missiles to sites in the rural United States this past week, residents in some of these communities are still grappling with another legacy — groundwater pollution from chemicals used to clean and maintain the weapons.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is identifying and cleaning up dozens of former nuclear missile sites in nine states.

he ICBM sites include 14 in Kansas, 10 in Nebraska, seven in Wyoming, seven in Colorado and two in Oklahoma. California, New Mexico, New York and Texas have one contaminated ICBM site each.

TCE may have polluted many more missile sites than the corps is aware.

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New York City Says Exxon Is Liable for Tainted Well Water in Queens

August 6, 2009 - Lawyers for New York City are trying to convince a jury in a federal trial that Exxon Mobile knew that an additive that it used in gasoline would contaminate groundwater.

The trial, which began on Tuesday is one of hundreds of cases that have been presented around the country against oil companies over the additive, M.T.B.E., a chemical compound that replaced lead in gasoline as an octane enhancer. Such enhancers boost engine performance and help prevent knocking.

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Monroe County NY: All private-well owners should test for arsenic

July 2, 2009 - All private-well owners in Monroe County should test their supply for the toxic metal arsenic, the county health department said this morning.

The department is making the recommendation as a result of the discovery of arsenic in dozens of private wells in west Webster, at levels as much as four times higher than the drinking-water guideline, spokesman John Ricci said.

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Suffolk County NY: No telling where Grumman pollution ends

July 4, 2009 - A plume of contaminated groundwater that stretches south of the former Northrop Grumman plant in Calverton may be much larger -- and run much deeper -- than originally suspected, according to the Suffolk County health department.

"We found contamination in all the new wells," said Andrew Rapiejko, a health department geologist who oversaw a second round of testing this spring near the former naval weapons facility.

Health department officials, whose initiative was launched last summer based on previous -- but limited -- findings by the U.S. Navy, are also troubled by the potential depth of the plume.
As deep as they could drill in Calverton -- 115 feet -- county workers continued to find traces of volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, in the groundwater.

"It's getting to the deeper aquifer, and that would be a concern," Mr. Rapiejko said.

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