DEC Violations at Mohegan Club Site Still Not Cleaned Up
Despite assurances by Yorktown Supervisor Michael Grace to the contrary, violations cited a year ago by the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) on the former Holland Sporting Club property in Mohegan Lake still remain.
In an email to Councilman Vishnu Patel on Thursday, Wendy Rosenbach, a DEC spokesperson, stated she confirmed with David Pollack, Region 3 enforcement engineer for the DEC’s Solid Waste Compliance Unit, that the notice of violation issued to Yorktown on March 13, 2013 was “still considered unresolved.”
She added that the DEC has recently been in contact with the town and a meeting will hopefully take place in the near future to finalize plans to remove the remaining waste piles sometime in the spring.
The DEC issued a notice of violation last year after visiting the property in November 2012 and conducting tests to determine what material had been buried during the demolition in the summer of 2012 of 14 buildings by the Yorktown Highway Department as a cost saving measure.
While no contaminated or hazardous material was identified, Pollack stated in the violation notice addressed to former Highway Superintendent Eric DiBartolo “the town was found in violation…for the disposal and burial of solid waste including construction and demolition debris at the above site without a permit.” The town was also cited for disposing of demolished building materials at an unauthorized facility.
When asked by resident Ed Ciffone about the property last week, Grace maintained “there are no current violations. Everything was cleaned up last time. The DEC has been all over that. We dug it up. We found every old chip that was in there that shouldn’t be in there.”
Patel, who has been regularly in contact with the DEC about the activities at the site, countered Grace’s claims, saying violations still existed and it wasn’t going to cost the town substantial funds to clean up the property properly.
“Why are you hiding it? Tell the truth,” Patel told Grace.
Yorktown technically had 90 days to comply with the violation notice or it could have faced fines from the state, but apparently the DEC gave the town some leeway to cooperate.
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