Source: http://www.timesunion.com, October 19, 2015
By: Brian Nearing

After dispute, estate to help fund work at former dry cleaner site

The cleanup of carcinogenic chemicals from a former Delmar dry cleaner along a busy commercial strip is moving ahead after a lengthy legal dispute over who would pay for it.
This month, the state Department of Environmental Conservation re-announced its cleanup at the former Roxy Cleaners near Delaware Plaza. The project had been on hold after the estate of the property’s owner sued to block DEC’s 2013 attempt to make the estate pay hundreds of thousands of cleanup costs.
That lawsuit in U.S. District Court ended in December after an agreement was reached between DEC and the estate, and last week, DEC announced the $621,000 project would begin shortly. Work is expected to be done by December.
Under a settlement, DEC will use the taxpayer-funded Superfund program to pay for the work, said agency spokesman Kevin Frazier on Monday. However, the estate of the late Elizabeth Smith agreed to reimburse DEC for up to $100,000 of that expense, and to take responsibility for monitoring the property after the cleanup is done, Frazier said.
Smith inherited the Roxy property from a relative in 2005, and she died in 2010 in Florida, with the property becoming part of her estate. The building was demolished in 2014; only a concrete slab remains on the 1.1-acre property, which is primarily a parking lot just east of the shopping plaza.
DEC plans call for removal of about 1,650 cubic yards of soil tainted with four dry cleaning chemicals known to cause cancer in humans — tetrachloroethene, trichloroethene, dichloroethene and vinyl chloride, according to a notice from the state Department of Environmental Conservation.
Also, chemicals will be injected into the ground to neutralize remaining pollution, and an adjoining building will be fitted with an air pressurization system in its foundation to vent any potentially hazardous vapors seeping from the ground out of the building and into the air.
In March 2013, DEC announced the cleanup of about 340 cubic yards of tainted soil under the Superfund program and projected an $800,000 price tag for the work.
In August of that year, DEC wrote to a company — A Lot in Delmar Inc. — controlled by Smith’s estate, saying as a former owner, it could be responsible for cleanup costs under state law. The estate sued to block DEC from starting the project until the issue could be resolved.
Smith inherited the property from a relative, Kathryn Smith, who had for years leased it to Roxy Cleaners, which operated there until 2004, when it closed. Another company, Best Cleaners, took over the location, but did not conduct cleaning operations and was not responsible for the chemicals left behind by Roxy, according to DEC records.