Source: http://www.watertowndailytimes.com, August 21, 2016
By: Craig Fox

With an environmental remediation ongoing about a mile away, the state Department of Environmental Conservation has announced that a second cleanup will soon start at the former New York Air Brake site on Starbuck Avenue.

The new $1 million cleanup project, expected to take four months, will focus on the Allison Test Room, where contamination was first noticed in 1992 during the cleanup of a hydraulic oil spill.

The cleanup is expected to be complete later this year.

It’s additional remedial work that began at the former Air Brake plant during the 1990s. Last month, workers started diverting Kelsey Creek to allow for a $1.5 million cleanup of pollutants that were dumped decades ago at the former plant.

The Allison Test Room cleanup will involve the excavation and treatment of 7,200 cubic yards of petroleum and chlorinated solvent-impacted soil from an approximately 0.4- acre area, according to a fact sheet released by DEC officials. The work will go as deep as 12 feet.

The former Air Brake site is now a business incubator, called the Watertown Center for Business and Industry. When the remedial work is completed, the site can then revert to industrial use, according to DEC officials.

William J. Soluri, the center’s director of site facilities, said that he knew the cleanup was about to begin. He’s confident the cleanup will be handled properly.

“It’s been in the works,” he said. “I have no ongoing concerns for the property or my tenants.”

But East Division Street resident James P. Barker — who with his brother, Scott W. Barker, and a former neighbor, Andrew Williams, have expressed concerns in recent years about the cleanup — said the Allison Treatment Room was “one of the worst contaminated areas on the site.”

“Anything that involves actual clean-up is progress,” Mr. Barker said. “It’s something that was understood to be happening, at some point, since they’ve been working on a plan for the last decade plus.”

According to the DEC fact sheet, the cleanup’s goal is to protect public health and the environment.

The Allison Test Room, where hydraulic pumps were tested for decades, was leveled by a 2001 fire that destroyed Cellutech Inc. and all that remains is a concrete slab, located about 300 feet away from Building C.

The remediation includes removing the concrete slab and vegetation that will allow for access to contaminated soil, which will be removed. Treated soil that meets state quality levels will then be used as backfill, while the contaminated soil will be hauled off-site, according to the fact sheet.

A health and safety plan and an air monitoring program also will be implemented at the site.

SPX Cor. — the North Carolina company that was involved in previous Air Brake cleanup efforts— will complete the new work. Once completed, the company will prepare a final engineering report.

DEC officials have planned the cleanup for years. After the fire, the site became more accessible for investigation and remediation, a DEC spokeswoman said. Until now, it’s been handled through a long-term groundwater monitoring program, she said.

The site is now fenced in and several “Danger No Trespassing” signs have been put up warning people to stay out. To prepare for the work, two dump truck and excavators have been moved to the site.

Just as the cleanup is about to begin at the former Air Brake plant, a $1.5 million remediation project continues nearby in a section of Kelsey Creek.

That project is designed to tackle the remnants of polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, and cadmium, a poisonous metal, found in a small section of the creek, on a half-acre site in the middle of the North Watertown Cemetery off Bradley Street.

Those contaminants were found in 2013 during a review of a cleanup completed during the 1990s. Kelsey Creek runs through the cemetery and underneath the Bradley Street bridge, more than a mile from the former Air Brake plant.

With about 45 percent of the work finished, Marc Syracuse, project manager with Environmental Waste Minimization, Inc., Northampton, Pa., for the Kelsey Creek remediation, said no big surprises have come from the work, although the DEC spokeswoman confirmed more soil than expected had to be removed.

While it took a little longer to install equipment to divert the creek, the project remains on schedule for an October completion, Mr. Syracuse said.

“Everything is on schedule as far as the cleanup on the site,” he said.

Once both the Kelsey Creek and Allen Test Room projects are finished, the DEC spokeswoman doesn’t anticipate any more cleanup from contamination dumped at the former Air Brake site.

“At this time, beyond routine operations, monitoring and maintenance of existing systems, we have no additional known remedial programs,” she said.

But Mr. Barker has called for DEC to continue remedial efforts, especially in light of the two current projects.

“I honestly would be surprised if this were the end of the work. There’s just too many unknowns,” he said.

In recent years, residents and former neighbors have told stories about family members suffering nerve disorders, cancer and birth defects.

In 1995, DEC dredged Kelsey Creek and removed contaminants and soil. But residents said they believe pollutants got into the ground and spread off site and back into Kelsey Creek, causing subsequent health problems for them and their families.

In 2012, Mr. Barker, his brother and Mr. Williams got environmental activist Erin Brockovich and her California law firm involved in looking at whether their health problems were caused by the dumped contaminants. Unable to find a law firm to handle it, legal action now looks less likely.

Mr. Williams, who suffers from a rare genetic disease that causes blindness and a nerve disorder, is on a trip across the country, despite his illnesses. He’s currently in Florida.