State will test private wells near Cairo Superfund site
CAIRO — New York will test private wells near a federal Superfund site in South Cairo after a raucous public information session with state officials last month.
The site, a former thermostat factory, has been an issue since the state Department of Environmental Conversation discovered in 1981 that employees had been pouring solvents containing carcinogenic chemicals into a decommissioned septic system and on the company parking lot. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency declared the area a Superfund site the next year and began cleaning it, but many residents around the site use wells to this day.
The state Department of Health confirmed Friday afternoon that residents on state Route 25B west of the Country Estates mobile home park to Scotch Rock Road and residents on Scotch Rock Road will have their wells tested by a state contractor in conjunction with the DEC and the town of Cairo following the property owner’s consent.
A state contractor “will schedule and collect private drinking water samples, and DOH will provide the sampling results to the property owners. If site-related contaminants are found to exceed NYS drinking water standards, DOH would recommend an alternate water supply be provided by DEC or the Environmental Protection Agency,” according to the DOH.
The state, which took over the site from the EPA in 2008, regularly tests the groundwater around the site as part of its continued remediation of the site, finding that levels of tetrachloroethylene and trichloroethylene — the chemicals released by the factory — are below the threshold where they are dangerous to humans. However, an EPA report released earlier this year found that levels of the contaminants were not decreasing as quickly as they should be, suggesting there is an additional source of contamination on the site.
The company that owned the factory, the American Thermostat
Company, shuttered in 1985. The site now has a different owner, who is storing scores of used cars under tarps there.
Greene County Administrator Shaun Groden
Will Waldron/Times Union said Thursday that the tests were discussed at a meeting held Wednesday involving town leaders of Cairo and the town and village of Catskill; representatives from the state
DOH and DEC; representatives from the EPA; and members of the Greene County Legislature. Residents would be notified of the tests, which are free, by text message and leaflets dropped off in mailboxes.
Groden said the state representatives supported getting residents with wells on municipal water.
The group discussed whether the municipalities could be refunded with EPA Superfund money if they paid to extend an existing water main. He said the representatives were sympathetic and told local leaders they would have to check if refunding the local governments was possible.
The village of Catskill’s water main was extended to many of the properties around the Superfund sites in 1992, but it did not reach Cairo due to disagreements between the municipal governments and the refusal of the thenowner of the Country Estates mobile home park to pay for additional water costs.