Burns’s cleanup completed
Concerns raised about toxins in reservoir



GUILDERLAND — After years of testing and cleaning toxic waste dumped by the former Army depot in Guilderland Center, most of those involved agree — headway has been made.

However, concerns have been raised about toxins infiltrating the Black Creek and ultimately the Watervliet Reservoir, from either the old depot or from industrial runoff.
"We are turning the corner here," said Gregory Goepfert, the project manager from the Army Corps of Engineers, at a meeting Thursday of the Restoration Advisory Board, made up largely of local citizens.

The land used by the former army depot, which was built in the 1940s, is now largely occupied by the Northeastern Industrial Park in Guilderland Center. The industrial complex lies near the Black Creek which is a tributary to Guilderland’s main source of drinking water — the Watervliet Reservoir.
"It’s been good work," Goepfert said of cleanup efforts during the past several years. "We’re doing good things."

The chairs of Restoration Advisory Board, Charles Rielly and Thadeus Ausfeld, both agreed that much has been done in recent years, but both added that they were concerned about the future health of the town’s reservoir.
"Probably not in our lifetimes," Ausfeld said at the meeting, "but sometime that reservoir is going to have to be cleaned up"We’ll probably end up passing the buck on to our children."
Rielly said that, despite all of the corps’ efforts in identifying trouble spots and cleaning up the area, more testing needs to be done. Saying that the corps is only "looking for contaminants coming from the depot," Rielly said more needs to be done because the "town would rather just look away."

The city of Watervliet, which owns and operates the reservoir located in the town of Guilderland, did not send a representative to last week’s meeting. The city has recently drafted plans to raise the level of the reservoir by several feet in order to sell water to other municipalities.

Guilderland Supervisor Kenneth Runion praised depot cleanup efforts this week and applauded the Army Corps of Engineers and volunteers who have made the work possible.
"I think they’ve been doing a great job," Runion told The Enterprise.
As for the raising of the Watervliet Reservoir, Runion said the city is still in an "investigative phase" and the environmental impact statement is still being prepared. The town has roughly 10 years left in its contact for municipal water with Watervliet.
"We have a contract with them to take a certain amount of yielded water from the reservoir each year," Runion said. "They’re still in the process of preparing impact statements for raising the water level."

As for the 35 acres of land on Depot Road — the last part to be used by the Army — that the town was previously looking to acquire for a town park, Runion said more testing needs to be done on the land.

The land was used to store defense supplies such as aluminum, copper, lead, and zinc for decades.
"We had a couple of discussions with the branch of the federal government that deals with this," Runion said. "We have to be assured that there’s no potential for any type of contamination before we can proceed looking into it."

Runion said he believes the government is in the process of taking samples from the property.

The Cleanup
Goepfert reminded the restoration board that the Army Corps of Engineers is only responsible for the cleanup and monitoring of contaminants which came from the old Army depot, but added it is responsible "in perpetuity."
A final report has been issued on the cleanup of toxic waste from Joan Burns’s property, which is identified as Area of Concern 2 by the corps. All of the excavation and "disposal actions" on her property were completed in October of last year, according to Goepfert.

Burns, who is also a member of the restoration advisory board, said she is concerned about possible waste being found on her property in the future.
"It is open-ended on behalf of the federal government, which is liable for anything found in the future," Goepfert reassured her at the meeting.

Burns and her late husband, Milton, bought the 40 acres on Depot Road in 1963. The property had once belonged to the Army depot and the Burnses bought it from the General Services Administration when the depot was being phased out.

The couple were not told about the buried wastes there, according to Burns.

Burns, who was a nurse, has told The Enterprise in the past that her family suffered "a lot of health problems" that she believes were associated with the buried waste. She also had several animals abruptly die on the property as well, she said.

The Army Corps of Engineers was able to secure $650,000 in federal funding for the project. Thousands of cubic feet of dirt have been removed from the property. Found underneath the ground’s surface were drums filled with a tar substance, bottles with paint residue, and ink, as well as many small pill bottles.

At last week’s meeting, Burns said that she was happy with the final report issued to her corps.
"I want to make an official thank-you to everyone for all of their hard work," Burns said at the meeting.
Rielly responded by saying, "We should be thanking you for all of your cooperation."

Groundwater from a total of five monitoring wells and one surface water sample will be taken in April and again in October of this year to be analyzed for volatile organic compounds, semi-volatile organic compounds, chlorinated pesticides and metals, according to Goepfert.

However, Goepfert said, no long-term test plans are in place for the property.
"If there was still something there, we would find it in the groundwater," he said.

The board’s co-chairs were also skeptical of the landfill caps slated to be put in.
"If I owned a well within a half-mile of that cap, I wouldn’t drink the water; no matter what," said Ausfeld, who manages the water plant for the town of Guilderland.

Rielly agreed.
"Be wary of the caps; I don’t believe it," he said of their reliability and longevity in containing runoff.
"The caps are warranteed like anything else"The corps is not going to give away this responsibility," Goepfert told them. "It’s sort of forever once you cap a landfill"but a range of other alternatives besides capping are available."
Many of the plans in place for the corps’ work in the area are "contingent upon the availability of funds," according to Goepfert.
"We have a 100-year backlog worth of work," Goepfert said of regional Army clean-up projects. "With $500 million worth of work that we know of, we get about five million dollars a year to work with."
Overall, though, Goepfert said, the project should be considered "a great success."