Source: http://www.timesunion.com, January 16, 2016
By: Brian Nearing

Walgreens owns former site of dry cleaning operation

The state is still planning how to clean underground pollution from a former dry cleaners at a busy Loudonville intersection while weighing possible efforts to compel Walgreens, a national pharmacy chain that owns the property, to pay for the work.
It was February 2015 when the state Department of Environmental Conservation released a plan to clean up buried dry cleaning solvents from a vacant one-acre lot at the corner of Osborne and Albany Shaker roads, near Kimberly Plaza, that is owned by Walgreens.
The site was once home to Cleanerama, a dry cleaners that operated from 1960 to 1995. Under the state Superfund pollution cleanup program, tainted properties are the responsibility of the current owner, even if that owner was not responsible for the pollution.
Walgreens bought the property in 2008 with plans to build a pharmacy there, but has declined state requests to pay for the cleanup.
“An engineering contractor is currently working on a remedial design for the site cleanup, which is being funded by the state Superfund,” a DEC statement says. “DEC is evaluating all enforcement options available, including cost recovery options.”
DEC is planning to clean up the cleaning solvent tetrachloroethene (PCE) — and its harmful byproducts, trichloroethene (TCE) and dichloroethene; the pollution was discovered by DEC in 2003. Exposure to PCE likely increases cancer risk, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The proposed DEC cleanup plan calls for injection of a chemical into the ground to break down PCEs and its byproducts.
Iron would be spread through soil at the eastern side of Albany Shaker Road to break down PCEs and byproducts in groundwater that is flowing under the street.