WPCNR CITY CONFIDENTIAL. By John F. Bailey. June 15, 2006.  © 2006, The White Plains CitizeNetReporter, All Rights Reserved. UPDATED 6:52 P.M. E.D.T. At least a portion of the White Plains City Dump site between Gedney Way and Ridgeway Avenue is contaminated with TCE (trichloroethylene), a cleaning solvent used in dry cleaning operations and machinery maintenance as a degreaser, according to documents obtained by WPCNR.  The contamination has been known to both the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and the City of White Plains for some time, although the extent remains to be determined. WPCNR has been informed by the Commissioner of Public Works that a testing procedure has been submitted to the DEC to determine the extent of the contamination.

The contamination has been known to the city for twenty years, according to official city and DEC documents, though never divulged publicly before this week. When questioned Wednesday by WPCNR, both Wendy Rosenbach, a spokesperson for the Department of Environmental Conservation and Commissioner of Public Works for the City of White Plains, Joseph Nicoletti, confirmed that the contamination exists.

The City Dump Is Contaminated with TCE. Carl Albanese, a White Plains video journalist, first raised this possibility at the June 5 Common Council Meeting, in his call for environmental standards to be part of the Comprehensive Plan Review. This is a view of the dump, looking North towards Gedney Way, photographed April 15, 2006. Photo, Courtesy Carl Albanese.

Both Rosenbach and Nicoletti said the extent of the contamination is not known at this time and the present condition of the contamination of ground water and soil awaits analysis to be conducted by the City with DEC oversight under a Nicoletti-designed test procedure expected to be completed within the next six months.

Composting Ongoing.

Alternatives to be Discussed.

Rosenbach said the City composting operation at the Gedney dump is authorized to continue "for now," but the City has to close the dump and alternatives are now being considered.

South End of the 25 foot high Compost Pile, looking East.  Photographed in March. The Railside Avenue properties and Ridgeway Avenue are to the right. Contaminated soil lies 15 feet under the base of the compost pile. Photo Courtesy, Carl Albanese.

Commissioner Nicoletti told The CitizeNetReporter in an interview authorized by the Mayor's Office that the city sent a massive set of data to the DEC May 31, applying for a renewal of the city composting permit, and outlining a series of corrective measures the Commissioner hoped would make continuation of the composting operation acceptable to the DEC.

Those measures include: purchasing a machine at a cost of a few hundred thousand dollars to sift and till the compost pile; installing a filtering pad beneath the compost ;and, the sinking of plastic pipes to the bottom of the compost pile equipped with charcoal filters to control escaping gases.

 DEC Blows Whistle.

Rosenbach acknowledged that the DEC has received the City's request for renewal of its permit to conduct composting yard operations at the Gedney site.  The permit expired at the end of February and the DEC had previously told the City that it had no intention of issuing a renewal.

In a letter dated May 4, 2006, the DEC told the City that it has detected groundwater contamination at the facility site that the DEC attributes to the "former" landfill operation at the composting yard and demanded the composting yard be closed. Rosenbach said the DEC has not changed its mind, the City still has to close the yard, and the remediation issue is in play at this time.

Stream coming from under the Compost Pile at the South End of the Dump. Photo made in March 2006. Photo, Courtesy Carl Albanese. 

A Clarification.

The revelations by Rosenbach and Nicoletti shed a different light on what WPCNR was told last week.

WPCNR had talked with Paul Wood, the Executive Officer for Mayor Delfino said last week. At that time, Wood said the only issue with the Gedney dumpsite had to do with an oversight on the City's part - that it was simply a matter of the City neglecting to renew the permit for the composting operation.

Nicoletti said he currently is dealing with, "The issue of renewing our composting permit and what they (the DEC) would like to see us do with the solvent issue -- what was discovered about 20 years ago, and there are I don't know how many boxes of test data that go back to that point with them (the DEC). They want to see us do something with it. I don't know (at this time) what the solution would be."

A Contamination There for 35 Years.

Nicoletti told WPCNR the contamination is "like a cleaning fluid - the chlorine family something you use in dry cleaning."

WPCNR asked if it was pervasive. Nicoletti said, "It's down pretty far in the soil, 15 feet beneath the compost pile.  It was discovered by us some years back, in 1986, and they (the DEC) are fully aware of it. We're just waiting to see what they would want us to do (about it). It was put there some 15 years before that (1971)."

Trichloreoethylene is described by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry of Atlanta as having been found in 852 of the 1,430 National Priorities List clean-up sites (as of 2003) identified by the Environmental Protection Agency.

26 Barrels with TCE Traces

Removed in 1999.

WPCNR asked Nicoletti if the DEC was dragging its feet on the issue of TCEs. Nicoletti said, "I don't know if it's dragging their feet, or it's not important or that critical."

Composting Proposals

On the issue of the composting, WPCNR asked if the City had to reconstitute the compost with a new composting procedure. Nicoletti  replied, "No, we're looking at new equipment to turn the leaves more efficiently. There are things we're interested in pursuing. It's a more high tech way of composting."

Nicoletti said the photo shown at a Common Council meeting by resident Carl Albanese did not depict methane gas rising from the dump. The Albanese photo also was published by WPCNR.  

"The photo is not methane gas there. That's not what you see above ground. We have a plan for that, or at least a concept. It's relatively straightforward: plastic pipes with activated carbon or charcoal filter to collect the gases. This is not a very productive methane gas-producing site because most of the cell material was ash - which is relatively inert material. (The ash) is left over from our incinerator left over after garbage was incinerated," said Nicoletti.

Commissioner Nicoletti said it was "a misunderstanding" when WPCNR was told by Executive Officer Paul Wood last week that failing to renew the permit was an oversight. "We asked back in November for an extension of time because they (the DEC) had a lot of new information they requested since the last time (renewed, 1996), so we said we needed an extension to get all the things they were looking for."

TCE the only problem.

Nicoletti said there was no other  contamination issue other than the TCE. "The composting issue is above ground, and that's pretty straightforward. I'm not going to figure out what they're going to say (about remediation). We've had the site monitored. We put 9 monitoring wells in and we've been regularly testing those and sending those reports to the DEC. We've had a regular inspection. They come in unannounced, they come in every month. We've never had any issue with any of the operation (composting). It's been going on for years," said Nicoletti.

The Smell

WPCNR asked about the ripe smells from the dump long complained about for decades by residents in the Railside Avenue and homes between Ridgeway Avenue and Gedney Way.
Nicoletti said that was "organic," noting "It's sort of an organic thing. We continue to put more and more trees in the city and the volume of leaves has gone up over the years. It just makes it a little more difficult to toss. (The smell) depends on the weather, temperature, humidity, amount of rainfall. A lot of moving parts. Sometimes it's nonexistent, other times you have that compost smell. We urge people to do either home composting or use mulching mowers where you just cut the grass and the mower chops up the grass so fine there's no need to rake and get of clippings."

May 31 Letter Sets the City Plan

In a letter to Alexander F. Ciesluk, Jr. Deputy Regional Permit Administrator for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, Region 3, Niccoletti outlined how the City is proceeding to deal with the DEC request to close the dump and detailed how they propose to fix the composting operation to make it acceptable. Those enhancements include a pad to be placed under the compost.

Nicoletti writes: "the design and linear testing requirements of the compost pad in Area B, the method of leachate (drainoff from the compost) management …will be submitted in approximately four weeks. The design of the compost pad cannot be completed until a determination is made regarding the appropriate permeability. The proper permeability of this pad cannot be determined until the present condition of the solvent-contaminated soil beneath Area B is evaluated, and the former landfill site cap issues are resolved with the Division of Solid Waste."

City Tests for TCE Levels, Methane
in soil, gases and water. Complete in 6 Months.

The Commisioner's letter says that it will submit "an investigation work plan by the end of June, which will include collecting and analyzing samples of subsurface soil, soil vapor and groundwater. The soil vapor sampling effort collect samples within the landfill and around the perimeter in appropriate locations and analyze the samples for volatile organic compounds and methane."

The Commissioner's plan includes testing for volatile organic compounds and parameters (of the dump) within 50 feet of the top of the slope, which by WPCNR reckoning does not extend to the properties recently sold for $2.9 Million on Railside Avenue.

Nicoletti estimates the program of testing will be completed in six months.

Ms. Rosenbach, the DEC spokesperson, told WPCNR that White Plains would have to pay for any clean-up of the site.

Expensive Clean-up in Queens

The Queens newspaper Times Ledger reports in an article by Howard Koplowitz that 4,000 pounds of TCE is being removed currently from a site in Jamica Queens at 107-110 180th street, which was left at the former West Side Corporation site.

The TCE being removed is percholoroethylene, a member of the TCE family of solvents. The Department of Environmental Conservation is cleansing contaminated soil and groundwater at the cost of $4-million, in a process expected to last 20 years. The Buffalo firm, URS Corporation, is conducting the clean-up which consists of heating the soil to a boiling point (known as electrical resistance heating), changing the "perc" from liquid to a vapor form. The steam is then collected into a treatment system where the perc is destroyed.

TCE: What it is.

TCE is heavier than water according to Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, and is used as a solvent for cleaning metal parts. It sinks to the bottom of streams it enters, forming a silt. It has a sweet odor and is also used in adhesives, paint removers typewriter correction fluids and spot removers. It has been found, according to the ATSDR in underground water sources and many surface waters as a result of the manufacture use and disposal of the chemical.

TCE is described by the ATSDR as remaining in ground water a long time. The Jamaica deposits of TCE are reported left from 25 years ago. It is said to stick to particles and remain for a long time. Breathing small amounts of TCE may cause headaches, lung irritation, dizziness, poor coordination and difficulty concentrating. TCE has been designated by the National Toxicology Program as "reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen, and the International Agency for Research on Cancer has reported that trichloroethylene is "probably carcinogenic to humans."

The Environmental Protection Agency, according the ATSDR, has set a maximum contaminant level for trichloroethylene in drinking water at 0.005 milligrams per liter or 5 parts of TCE per billion parts water.