Was Dumping at PV Fire Dept. Site Connected to Tainted Well Water?
Opinion Advocates for ideas and draws conclusions based on the author/producer’s interpretation of facts and data.
Many thanks for your outstanding articles in The Putnam Examiner on the polluted wells in Putnam Valley and the lawsuit filed by our school district. I hope that your reporters will continue to investigate this matter as it appears that there is more here than meets the eye.
Although the parties involved are blaming the contamination on chemical foam used by the firefighters, I would like to suggest that this may not be the case.
In fact, there is another potential source of contamination at the Fire Department property on Oscawana Lake Road (where the new firehouse is currently being built), less than a mile from the school and Camp Floradan, that seems much more likely. Several years ago, that site was contaminated with toxic fill that had to be cleaned up by the fire department under the auspices of the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC).
Given the current level of interest about the water supplies, I am surprised that nobody mentioned the prior illegal dumping and contamination at the fire department construction site that had occurred previously. This contamination was well-documented and was the subject of a DEC action that entailed violations, fines, a consent order and eventual remediation by the Putnam Valley Fire Department that was completed in 2021.
This remediation cost Putnam Valley taxpayers more than $2 million, and no restitution was ever sought from the parties involved. Sadly, there has never been a serious investigation of this matter by the fire department, Town Board, Board of Health, district attorney or any other government agency that would have jurisdiction and/or prosecutorial discretion.
According to public records retrieved through FOIL, back in 2016, when the new firehouse was in the planning stages, the Putnam Valley Fire Department allowed a private contractor to dump over 17,000 cubic yards of toxic demolition waste on its property that was used as fill. According to the contractor, the fill came from a construction site in the Bronx and the lab reports showed that it was loaded with many harmful chemicals and toxins.
None of the parties involved had any idea what was in the fill when it was dumped, and it was not until the DEC was called in after the neighbors complained about the noise and dumping, that the extent of the contamination and damage to the environment was revealed.
To make matters worse, the location where the fill was dumped is designated as a Ground and Surface Water Protection Zone. Unless the neighboring wells are monitored and tested, there is no way of knowing if the chemicals are the same ones that are now being found at the elementary school and Camp Floradan.
Based on the dumping and remediation that took place these past several years, it seems a possibility that the fire department’s property on Oscawana Lake Road could be the source of the current contamination of these water supplies. Why hasn’t anyone connected the dots, especially former supervisor Oliverio, who was in office during the dumping scandal as it was unfolding? It is long past time for the Town Board, DEC, Board of Health, attorney general, comptroller or another government agency to reopen this case and do a thorough assessment of the nearby wells.
It is inconceivable that the school district and/or other plaintiffs are going after the big chemical companies before they completely rule out the possibility that the contamination came from the Oscawana Lake Road property where the toxic dumping had actually occurred. Where is the Board of Health on this or the DEC? Why aren’t our elected representatives and the agencies they oversee investigating the wells near the fire department to see if they too have been contaminated? Why is the Putnam Valley Fire Department above the law?
If the powers that be refuse to look at the Oscawana Lake Road property and test the nearby wells to see if the contaminants match, we should know the reason why.
I sincerely hope that The Examiner will continue its reporting since it seems that it is the only outfit even remotely interested in the problems we are facing with our water supply.
Patty Villanova
Putnam Valley
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