WPCNR THE DUMP NEWS. Interview with Commissioner of Public Works. July 5, 2007: The Mayor signed a consent order June 8 with the New York Department of Environmental Conservation to conduct a detailed and exacting survey of how much Trichloralethylene (contaminate) is below the surface of the city dump, where it is, and whether or not it needs to be remediated (removed).

The City Dump Southend, one week ago. Spiffed up! Massive Mound of  former Compost refuse, junk, removed.

Commissioner of Public Works Joseph Nicoletti.

The  nauseating contamination of the dump, known to city officials for 30 years, has long been the source of stifling, sickening fumes wafting into the Beverly Road, Ridgeway School Rocky Dell, Colonial Corners area. The Department of Environmental Conservation identified drums which contained TCEs in 1998. On June 8 of this year (nine years later), the city signed the consent order in which the DEC spared the city the onus of paying civil penalties in access of 330 Million dollars for the 9 years the contamination has been left in the ground.  Department of Environmental Protection spokesperson, Wendy Rosenbach said she expected a determination on a cleanup by September.

WPCNR interviewed Commissioner of Public Works, Joseph Nicoletti on the situation and what lies ahead in the city effort to deal with a problem they have ignored for over thirty years:

WPCNR: What is next -- remediation?

Joseph Nicoletti: We’re going to work out the fair thing to do.

WPCNR: The DEC put in a long list of things you had to do in addition to what you said you would do, where to drill the test wells, how deep they are, and what information they want. Have you already started to act on their suggestions?

Nicoletti: Not really because all of these things have to be done in concert. We don’t just go out and drill where we think we’re supposed to drill or where we want to drill. We have to get an approved site plan from them. First it’s called a boring log. We tell them where we think we want to go. It usually requires a site visit or two which is what we’ve been doing over the last 6 or 8 months, and we have to look at the topography. They frequently have to be modified, the locations. It’s complicated. It takes quite a while to do that. It takes a lot of meetings. We’re really going to finish up the steps we have now and in the very near future, we’ll have some more meetings with the DEC people and we’ll go to the next step.

WPCNR: What is that next step?

Nicoletti: To do more borings that they’re interested in having us do. I think they’d probably want to wait and see what our current round of tests look like as well. That’s on the way. Sometime in the very near future we should be finishing up the first round of tests.

WPCNR: When is the estimated time when decision would be made on possible remediation?

Nicoletti: It’s an ongoing thing John, we take it one step at a time and that’s the way the DEC is working it, and that’s of course the way we’re working. In the next month or so, I’m sure we’ll be meeting and review all of the progress and things we’ve done to date. That’s the way it works. It’s a large area. There are a lot of things to do, and maybe a lot of things that don’t have to be done.

WPCNR: Have you complied with the order to remove all the previous compost pile?

Nicoletti: Yes. That was done.

WPCNR: Are composting again?

Nicoletti: That removal referred to anything that was there prior to last fall. Anything that we had in there before then they wanted us to remove, which we did. Anything new that came in from last fall’s leaves is being composted as we speak.

WPCNR: So composting operations have begun?

Nicoletti: They began back in October.

WPCNR: So the present time the dump is being used for what activities?

Nicoletti: As we’ve always used it – waste processing, chipping of brush, logs, branches and so forth.

WPCNR: What do you anticipate these new testing operations going to cost the city?

Nicoletti: I don’t know. That would be hard to say because we don’t know what all the tests are going to show. I’m very positive about it.

WPCNR: Could this  (TCE contamination) be easily remediated by a chemical treatment?

Nicoletti: There’s no magic wand. It doesn’t seem to be worse than I thought if anything better. Just my own personal feeling.

WPCNR: How did you determine that?

Nicoletti: Just from my observations of soil as it’s being removed. You can smell the soil. See the soil. I didn’t see any evidence of petroleum contaminates or any of those things. It’s better than I would have expected. I’m just trying to share something with you.

WPCNR: We love it when the city shares, Mr. Nicoletti. This (your observation) is based on the ongoing tests?

Nicoletti: We don’t have the actual results back. This is my own personal valuation. We’ll just have to wait for the first official results of the first round of tests.

WPCNR: Why did the DEC administer such a moderate civil penalty, because the cleanup would be very expensive?

Nicoletti: I really don’t know. I’ll have to find out.