GUILDERLAND — With funding on the horizon for clean-up of the Army’s former bivouac area, good will abounded at the meeting last Thursday of the Restoration Advisory Board.

Board members, mostly local citizens, had earlier pushed for the clean-up and Gregory Goepfert, project manager from the Army Corps of Engineers, read a statement commending the board’s co-chairs.
"Words of thanks are in order for all citizen members of the Restoration Advisory Board, and for the notable efforts of Messrs. Charles Rielly and Ted Ausfeld for their dedication to their community...," said Goepfert.
"We’re pleased you’re getting started," said Rielly, a Guilderland resident who, with Ausfeld, serves as community co-chair of the board.
"We don’t want to jinx it," cautioned Goepfert, noting the funding is not yet official. "We have to finalize the remedial document," he said.

Federal funds of $650,000 are expected for the cleanup project, with work slated to begin in the fall. Drums filled with a tar substance and bottles with paint residue and ink will be dug out of the ground and taken away. The material will be taken to a licensed disposal facility, Goepfert said, and the project is expected to take two to three months.

Joan Burns and her late husband, Milton, bought their house and 40 acres on route 201 in 1963. The property was once part of the Army depot that was built in Guilderland and New Scotland in the 1940’s.

The Burnses bought their property from the General Services Administration when the depot was being phased out; they were not told about waste being buried there, Burns told The Enterprise earlier.
Burns, a nurse, said her family suffered "a lot of health problems" that she believes are associated with the buried waste.

Recent tests have shown that much of the buried waste on Burns's land is toxic and dangerous.
"The results of the samples showed that the materials had hazardous components to them," Goepfert told The Enterprise last week. "I was able to justify the removal based on these results."

Cleanup concerns

At last Thursday’s meeting, the Restoration Advisory Board discussed some of the fine points of the cleanup and some of the concerns.

One concern was that area wells could be affected by the toxic wastes.
"Albany County, the Department of Environmental Conservation, the Army Corps all said there were no problems...Now it’s in black and white," said Thadeus Ausfeld who, in addition to co-chairing the committee, operates the town’s water plant.

He was making the point that groundwater near the Burns property could be contaminated and that government agencies wouldn’t necessarily be aware of the contamination.
Heather Bishop, with the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation, said, "Albany County should have information. I think we should do some site visits."
"We should look to see if problems show up at other sites," said Ausfeld.
"We’re good at bugging," said Rielly, with a laugh.
"So am I," returned Goepfert. "It’s a good idea to do a follow-up sample at the downstream well."

Another question was about the many small pill bottles surfacing on Burns’s property; some of them contain salt.
"Since the pill bottles don’t test hazardous, FUDS won’t fund their removal," said Goepfert, referring to the Defense Environmental Restoration Program for Formerly Used Defense Sites.

George Moreau with Parsons, Engineering Science, Inc. a firm hired by the Army Corps of Engineers, said that the sodium would have to have a pH below 2 or above 12 to be considered hazardous and the pill bottles on the Burns property do not meet this criteria.
Goepfert said the pill bottles will be removed if "impractical to leave behind."
Rielly asked about other substances "above criteria."
"The fact that there’s background doesn’t mean they have to be removed," said Moreau. "It’s not a health threat or they aren’t hazardous."
Moreau also said, "We found pesticides all over the site...There's nothing to connect it to the Army’s activities; it seems to be pretty widespread."

Burns’s queries

Goepfert also looked at a letter from Burns, delivered by Ausfeld.

Burns is a RAB member but was unable to attend last week’s meeting.
"She asked what happens if DOD [Department of Defense] materials were found in the future," Goepfert related after perusing the letter.
Goepfert answered the question, "We continue to have that liability basically forever."
"She bought this innocently, thinking this was a commander’s bivouac area, not a landfill," said Rielly. "I think she’s concerned about someone else" being caught in the same situation should she sell the property.

Burns told The Enterprise last week that she is undecided about selling her property in the near future.
Goepfert went on, relating a question from Burns's letter: How many years of post-removal sampling"
"We’re not planning any long-term sampling," he said, adding, "A lot of judgment will happen in the field."

Reservoir concerns
RAB member Joan Kappel, an Altamont resident, said, "In that area of town, the water table has risen...Farmers used to keep the streams clear....I think the beavers have had something to do with it, too; they’re very active."

Rielly raised a concern that board members have voiced before. He said that the Black Creek, which runs near Burns’s property, feeds the Watervliet Reservoir, Guilderland’s major source of drinking water. Rielly also mentioned a plan Watervliet is considering to raise the reservoir dam, flooding the area.

Rielly said this should justify testing the Black Creek sediment.
"Based on the data we’ve seen, we can’t see the justification," said Goepfert. "We do have a feasibility study we’re doing on the Black Creek."

Kappel wanted an estimate on the cost of sampling the delta, if, perhaps, a group besides the Army Corps were to pay for it.

Moreau replied it would depend on the scope — how many samples, how deep, and analyzed for what — but could range from $10,000 to $100,000.
"What would be needed to establish a link between what’s upstream and what’s downstream"" asked Kappel.
"You’d have to show the same contaminants," responded Goepfert. But then, he said, that wouldn’t be enough since the contaminants could have come from somewhere besides the Army depot.

Goepfert gave the example of lead, used in gasoline, which could have migrated into the creek.

Rielly said it could be determined from the sediment roughly when a hazardous material was deposited.
What’s next"

Subject to the availability of funds, Goepfert said, plans for the 2006 fiscal year, which begins in October, include feasibility studies for two other areas of concern.

The Army Corps of Engineers has classified nine areas of concern or places that were determined to be a risk to human health.

In the 1940’s, the United States Army chose a site near the Black Creek in Guilderland Center for a depot. The Army diverted the creek into two halves and, as was common practice in that era, sent waste into the creek or buried it on site or possible near the site. The depot closed in 1969.

Most of the former depot land now belongs to the Northeastern Industrial Park.

The Army Corps of Engineers was assigned to assess the environmental damage stemming from the military use of the depot, which was originally farmland and swamp.

Three years ago, Goepfert secured FUDS funding, originally intended to clean up a former burn pit, called AOC 3, from which a toxic plume is emanating. The money was used instead to clean up a site by Guilderland High School where the school district was building a new bus facility and old Army waste had been unexpectedly uncovered. The cleanup cost about half-a-million dollars.

The two areas that are slated for further study in 2006 are AOC 1, the United States Army Southern Landfill, and AOC 8, the Black Creek.

AOC 1 is in the southern portion of the depot next to the railroad tracks and bounded by Route 201 (Depot Road) near where it meets Stone Road. There is a pond on the site, about 1,500 feet from the main channel of the Black Creek and is classified as a Class 2 site by the DEC.
"We’d like to bring AOC 7 into that," said Goepfert of the feasibility study on the southern landfill.

AOC 7, known as the Triangular Disposal Area, is in the southeast end, roughly between AOC 1 and AOC 4, the Construction and Demolition Landfill. Buried debris such as railroad ties and glass bottles have been discovered in the Triangular Disposal Area.
"We do look for public involvement in this process," said Goepfert.
"The Black Creek is a major concern," concluded Ausfeld. "We have to do everything we can do make sure it’s protected."