by Alex Brooks
Quite a number of senior officials from NYSDEC and NYSDOH showed up for a meeting on PFOA in Petersburgh on June 20. There were six DEC staff and four from the NYS Dept. of Health and four from the Rensselaer County Dept. of Health.[Private]
A site characterization document has just been completed on the Petersburgh landfill. It is apparently a lengthy document. Copies of it are not yet available at the Town hall or the Library, but DEC Regional Director Keith Goertz said they will get copies out soon for the public to examine.
The leachate coming out of the bottom of the landfill has been tested and found to have about 5000 parts per trillion(ppt) of PFOA in it. This runs down into a little stream, which has been measured at about 2000 ppt just downstream of where the leachate flows into it. But 200 feet downstream from there, it measures about 160 ppt.
In the landfill itself readings vary tremendously, from less than 1 ppt to 1600 ppt. Goertz said DEC has drawn two conclusions from the data it has gathered so far. These are that a leachate collection system has to be installed to collect and treat the leachate that is coming out of the landfill so it doesn’t run into the stream and from there into the Little Hoosic River, and that DEC should do some further investigation to understand better where the hotspots are and which way the water is flowing in those areas. DEC plans to install additional groundwater monitoring wells and do more testing.
However, Goertz seemed to feel that other than the high level of PFOA in the leachate, the landfill does not present any major red flags, so they may not have to declare it a Superfund site if they can get a leachate collection system installed. He said it would be more advantageous to the Towns of Berlin and Petersburgh if DEC undertook enforcement under solid waste law rather than under Superfund.
The Towns will be required to install a leachate collection system, which Goertz said will cost a few hundred thousand dollars.
The landfill was closed by a contractor called Energy Answers. They installed a system of pipes to carry leachate to a single exit point, but they did not provide a tank to collect the leachate where it comes out. They may bear some responsibility for the current problem.
Goertz said although it stands to reason that the PFOA in the landfill probably came from Taconic dumping its waste there, DEC cannot hold Taconic responsible for PFOA in the landfill unless it can prove that Taconic put waste containing PFOA in the landfill. However that may turn out, it is possible that Taconic will choose to assist the Towns with installation of the leachate collection system. There is also a possibility that some insurance policies bought by the towns at the time of the landfill closure will bring some assistance from those insurance companies.
Many uncertainties remain, but it seems clear that Berlin and Petersburgh are going to have to build and maintain a leachate collection system at the landfill.
Air Emissions
Ben Potter from DEC said they have done testing of the air exhaust coming out of the smokestacks at Taconic, and it was found to be non-detect for PFOA. Because of continuing complaints about the smell of that air exhaust from some of Taconic’s neighbors, which one woman at this meeting called “nauseating,” DEC has submitted some of its samples to a company that specializes in identifying which materials are causing odors, to find out exactly what substance causes the objectionable smell.
Goetz said DEC has made a lot of progress on its study of fish in the Little Hoosic River, and has collected a lot of data, but the results are not ready for release yet. [/Private]