WPCNR’s The Environmental Epitaph. By John F. Bailey. June 7, 2006. (c) 2006, The White Plains CitizeNetReporter. All Rights Reserved.: WPCNR has learned the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation is negotiating with the city to correct detected groundwater contamination at the Gedney Way City Dump. DEC testing of the dump conditions is being contemplated according to a DEC spokesperson.

In response to DEC concerns, the city has also hired a consultant to recommend possible solutions to the composting operation problems at the dump.

The consultant is working on how to create conditions that would allow the city to either continue composting operations at the dump or move it elsewhere, a spokesperson for the DEC told WPCNR Wednesday. The city would not confirm this to WPCNR or return calls for comment.

The spokesperson said the DEC has also directed the City of White Plains to close its landfill at Gedney Way where extensive composting continues daily. According to Wendy Rosenblatt, spokesperson for the DEC, “The landfill in there was supposed to be closed a long time ago, this just, I guess never was done. They are going to have to submit a plan on how they are going to do that (close the dump).”

Pipe from under the Gedney Dump Landfill City Compost Pile drains waters into the various streams of the old West Branch of the Mamaroneck River. Photographed March, 2006. Photo by Carl Albanese.

Carl Albanese addressing the Common Council Monday June 5. Albanese asked the Common Council to look into what he called the alleged pollution created by the City Dump, the hazardous waste release of methane gas into surrounding the city’s 55-acre dump, impacting the communities on Railside, Commerce, the Greenway and Stepinac School. Albanese said the Comprehensive Plan Review and amendments now under consideration by the Common Council needed to update White Plains environmental policies, regulations and guidelines to follow and implement for the future safety of those neighborhoods.  Photo Capture of White Plains Government Access Telecast by WPCNR News.

Stream leads out of the city dump into Mamaroneck River and out to Long Island Sound. Photographed March, 2006. Photo by Carl Albanese.

Clean Up Possibility.

Asked if this meant the city was going to have to clean up the 55-acre site, currently used for composting by the city, Rosenbach said, “It’s hard to say, we’re kind of looking into that now. They should be able to close the dump. They would have to submit plans to us for that (closing).”

WPCNR asked Rosenbach  if the dump was contaminated. Rosenbach said it was a possibility: “There is some potential of that.  There was supposedly some drums that were found there. At this point we’re not sure they have to do some more tests on that.”

WPCNR asked when the tests were going to be done. “I don’t have a time frame on that,” Rosenbach said. “We’re working with the City of White Plains to try to continue doing the composting, whether it’s there or somewhere else.”

Truck filled with grass clippings pauses at City Dump Check Point Wednesday afternoon. The Department of Public Works confirmed that composting service with valid permit were still open and dumpings of compostable material were still being accepted. Photo by WPCNR News.

Pickup Truck filled with Grass clippings pauses for clearance Wednesday afternoon. Photo by WPCNR News.

WPCNR asked, if technically the city was not supposed to be composting now. (trucks were delivering composting waste to the City Dump today.)

Rosenbach said the DEC was cutting White Plains some leeway on the issue of composting:

“We were saying that (to stop the composting) But at this point we got an application for the permit which we’re looking over now and we’re meeting with them, looking at other alternatives for composting. Composting may possibly be able to be continued there but that has not been decided yet.”

Asked when the composting, and dump closing procedure might be resolved Rosenbach said, “I have no time frame on that.”

Rosenbach  said no tests had been conducted yet.  This reporter asked what the DEC would be testing for. Rosenbach gave this insight: “I don’t know if they are actually going to be doing tests per se. I think it’s more looking back at the history of that landfill. This is pretty early on the process at this point. It just came up recently.”

Pool in city dump that feeds into Mamaroneck River. Photographed in March, 2006. Photo by Carl Albanese.

DEC Brass Meet With City on Dumping.

WPCNR has learned the DEC addressed this issue with the city in early May.

The inquiry into the City Dump is being overseen by the DEC. “What happens is any kind of plan (to close) that they have. The City has a consultant that would work for them. They would submit that (plan) to us, and then we would have to approve any sorts of plans.”

Rosenbach confirmed the City is working with a consultant to come up with a closing or reopening plan for the composting pile.

Pipe leading out of the dump draining to Mamaroneck River.  Photographed March, 2006.

More Drainage out from under the Compost Pile. Photographed March, 2006 Photos by Carl Albanese.

Silence from City Hall

The Mayor’s Office did not respond to WPCNR questions left Tuesday morning with David Maloney, a Mayor’s Office Spokesperson and again Wednesday afternoon on the Executive Officer’s answering machine. WPCNR asked who the consultant was, and whether there were any cleanup costs involved, or whether the city planned to move the composting operation, though as Ms. Rosenbach confirmed today the city has reapplied for the permit.

Wood in May: Nothing is Wrong.

Closing, Pollution of Landfill Denied.

Last month, Paul Wood, the City Executive Officer told this reporter in front of associates there was no plan to close the dump, and no remediation or expensive cleanup was necessary or even being contemplated.   Wood said the Department of Public Works forgot to reapply for the expired composting permit. Wood confirmed the city was holding “a couple of meetings” with the DEC on how to reopen the compost (which has actually never closed).

In May, Wood assured WPCNR there were no questionable conditions, no pollution issues surrounding the condition of the compost or the condition of the dump, and said there was no possibility the dump would close. He said the flap was simply on a failure to get paperwork in to the DEC.

The city also sold land on the Railside Avenue side of the dump, assuring purchasers the land was safe and there was no pollution issues.

Council Told Little.

WPCNR asked Rita Malmud, Common Council President,  if the Common Council was familiar with the consultant being hired to develop a closing plan for the dump.

Malmud said this evening that Mr. Wood had told the Common Council that  “I gathered there was some kind of change of personnel at DEC, and certain things we had done in the past were not being handled in the same way and there was no indication we would be closing. That’s really all I can tell you, I don’t have any details. I don’t recall any expenditure of funds for that.”

WPCNR told Malmud of the press officer’s comments. Malmud said, “We do do a lot of composting there. It may be a matter of semantics there. We don’t use it as a final resting place for garbage. We send our garbage to Peekskill. I have very, very, very very little information. I did have a discussion with Paul Wood, I was left with the impression that the landfill would not be closing that the city would work out whatever issues there were with the DEC.”

Malmud:  Landfill Cleaner.

Malmud said it was her impression the landfill was cleaner than it had been in the past: “There are monitoring wells. Those monitoring wells have shown that many years ago there was something dumped there but years have gone by and the presence of that substance has diminished over time so that is a positive sign rather than a negative sigh.”

Ms. Malmud had no idea what that substance was. “We have done some kind of monitoring over the years to ascertain what the status of that is.”

Groundwater Contamination?

WPCNR learned last month from a source at the DEC in New Paltz  that the landfill has a “solid waste problem,” regarding the way the landfill was used in the past, and that source repeated that to WPCNR Wednesday morning. Then Ms. Ronsebach officially confirmed the present efforts to find solutions for the landfill problem.

The city was notified by the DEC, according to spokesperson Rosenbach that the composting operation should stop, however composting has continued to this day, apparently with DEC blessing.

It was not until Wednesday afternoon that anyone from the Department of Environmental Conservation responded to WPCNR inquiries about the project.

WPCNR made two rounds of telephone calls to confirm what Mr. Wood told us last month. WPCNR left messages with six DEC officials referred as being familiar with the issue two weeks ago and none returned calls. I contacted four of the six again Wednesday morning, and they also did not return calls, however Ms. Ronsenbach did  acquaint WPCNR with the current dump situation.

The quiet way the DEC and the City of White Plains are handling this is reminiscent of the quiet way the six week raw sewage pollution in Silver Lake was handled last August when the public was not informed for six weeks of the toxicity of the sewage-polluted waters.

A Dark Past.

The city dump was used after World War II as a dumping place for ashes from the city incinerator. In the 1950s, according to Jack Harrington of the White Plains Historical Society,  it was the home to a bakery and a fleet of delivery trucks and a maintenance garage, where Harrington said there was a lot of dumping of motor vehicle waste on the site.

This reporter on summer nights when umpiring Little League games has inhaled and smelled the somewhat dizzying odors that drift over the Gedney fields along Ridgeway Avenue, the odors being a mixture of chemical and organic in scent. It is not pleasant to smell.

Neighbors have written WPCNR expressing concern over the stench that blankets the neighborhood periodically.

The probe of the last month is the first effort by the Department of Environmental Conservation to require the City of White Plains to pay attention to this condition that this reporter can determine.