WPCNR Southend Times. By John F. Bailey. August 14, 2006, UPDATED 10:22 P.M. August 15, 2006: The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation met with the city last week to discuss the city dump contamination. According to Wendy Rosenback, spokesperson for the DEC, “Things are positive, and we should have a decision soon.”

Rosenback said that according to the DEC, the landfill still needs to be closed, but she held out the possibility that the city composting operation may be allowed to remain in operation – but did not spell out the conditions.

Joseph Nicoletti, Commissioner of Public Works, told WPCNR Tuesday afternoon that the city and the Department of Environmental Conservation "are still exchanging information," at this time. He said he wants to be "absolutely sure the DEC is in agreement with his suggestions"  for making the composting operation acceptable which he sent the DEC in July.  Nicoletti said the composting operation nets $100,000 to the city. Nicoletti reports he does not know when action will be taken on remediating the dump, if at all.

Meanwhile, it has been reported to WPCNR, that machinery and trucks have removed construction debris from the dump composting area last week as part of what appears to be a city effort to remove materials that the city should not have disposed of in the composting area. City Hall has not returned a call to WPCNR requesting an update from the Department of Public Works on the progress of the talks.

Nicoletti confirmed that a couple of acres of construction debris had been removed last week. He explained the concrete debris made up the remnants of city road construction projects of the past. He said the concrete was shipped out last week to companies which turn concrete into gravel, and that the concrete was removed from the dump to make room for compostible debris from July's "big blow" that felled 600 trees in the city.

Rosenback would not comment on whether the DEC would require the city to remediate the contaminated water situation that the DEC confirmed in tests conducted in April, 1999, April 2003, and confiremed again this past April. The tests confirmed that “Groundwater and surface water contamination have been confirmed on site and may have moved off-site.”

The contamination consists of Trichloroethene (TCE) in the amount of 180 parts per billion as tested at one of the monitoring wells. The DEC standard for trichloroethene allowable is .005 parts per billion. Documents on file with the Department of Environmental Conservation show the contamination has been affecting the groundwater and the waters of the Mamaroneck River tributary which runs out of the dump for twenty years. The DEC has been scolding the city to remediate the contaminants for the last seven years. In a letter of May 4, 2004 to Commissioner of Public Works, Joseph Nicoletti, the DEC wrote,

“The median total Volatile Organic Compounds value at Monitoring Well-3 is 215 ppb and the total VOCs during the most recent sampling round waste was 223 ppb. In 1999 the City removed several 55-gallon drums located downgradient of monitoring well MW-3. Otherwise, the City has not initiated and actively responded to the detected VOC contamination. Ground water quality at well MW-3 has no significantly improved and more aggressive action is necessary. The has identified a solvent disposal “hot spot” in the west-central portion of the landfill. The City should consider source removal of the waste solvents as part of site remediation facilities.”

This spring after two more years of city failure to respond to DEC suggestions, the DEC wrote the city saying their permit to run the composting operation had expired and that the landfill needed to be closed because of the groundwater contamination on the site. The city explained this saying they had just “forgotten” to file a permit, denying there was any contamination in the dump at the time.