Source: http://www.democratandchronicle.com, December 6, 2015
By: Steve Orr
Environmental remediation at a Gates company has been successfully completed just as similar work is beginning at a commercial property in Brighton.
The remediated property is Buell Automatics, a precision-machined parts maker at 381 Buell Road near Greater Rochester International Airport. There, the owners enrolled in the state brownfield cleanup program and paid to excavate contaminated soil, extract chemical vapors from the ground, collect spilled petroleum products and inject material into the groundwater to break down contaminants.
The state Department of Environmental Conservation, which oversaw the work, recently said that the work was done. After a final review, the agency will certify the work as completed, which provides the owner a waiver of legal liability and makes state tax credits available.
At the same time, the DEC said that work was beginning at 235 Metro Park, located off Brighton-Henrietta Town Line Road not far from Monroe Community College. Property there in years past was contaminated by trichloroethylene and other solvents, petroleum constituents and the toxic metal arsenic, according to the DEC.
The agency added the property to its registry of sites that pose a significant threat to the environment or public health in early 2007. It recently announced that a pilot study had begun there to test the efficacy of injecting material to break down contaminants.
The work is being funded by a private company, Fischbach LLC, that apparently is associated with Fischbach & Moore Electric, a commercial contractor that occupied the property for many years. The DEC has said servicing of electric motors appeared to have caused much of the contamination.
The current owner of the building, which houses a graphics company, paid for some preliminary remedial work, including removal of an underground storage tank. But the owner ceased efforts years ago, prompting DEC to place the property on its registry.
The pilot project now underway will inject several materials, including vegetable oil, into contaminated groundwater below the Metro Park property. The materials are intended to speed up the natural breakdown of the chemicals. After the pilot is done, Fischbach and state officials will agreed on a method for full remediation of the site, the agency said.