GUILDERLAND — The Northeastern Industrial Park, which is on the site of a former Army depot in Guilderland Center, wants to build in two places that the Army has classified as areas of concern, or sites that were determined to be a risk to human health.

This inflames local activists, who for years have been trying to warn residents about toxic waste buried at the former Army depot. The buried materials affect almost everyone in town because tributaries to the Watervliet Reservoir, Guilderland’s main source of drinking water, run through the industrial park.

This week, Charles Rielly told The Enterprise of his concerns with the industrial park’s latest plans. Rielly is co-chair of the Restoration Advisory Board — a group, formed by the Army Corps of Engineers, of citizens and government officials.

Rielly worries that, if residents don’t speak out against the proposal, the town will approve it without question.
"To me, Guilderland is playing Russian roulette with the Watervliet Reservoir," he told The Enterprise.

Town Supervisor Kenneth Runion responded through The Enterprise that he sees problems with the environmental-impact statement, such as its traffic analysis.

These issues will come out during the town board’s public comment period, on Sept. 6. The board then may approve all, some, or none of the industrial park’s plans for new development, Runion said.

The town has been waiting since 1999 for the industrial park to submit its environmental impact study. The town and zoning board decided then that the industrial park was appearing before the zoning board too frequently for new development, Runion said.

While adding individual warehouses to the industrial park does not create a significant impact, many businesses do, he said. The town then asked the industrial park for an environmental-impact study.

In 2000, the town’s leverage for getting the study was placing a hold on any further permits the industrial park applied for from the zoning board.

In June of 2003, however, the zoning board granted the industrial park a special-use permit for a wood and lawn waste mulching business. The town became the industrial park’s partner in the business.

Some residents were outraged and Runion said then that the zoning hold was only on new buildings at the industrial park.

Before the 2003 election, The Enterprise asked Runion and the campaigning board members about cracking down harder on the industrial park. They all said then that the industrial park told them it was submitting its environmental impact study very soon.

Six years after the industrial park was to submit a masterplan, the draft of an environmental study was announced, at the July 12 town board meeting. Residents can comment on the study at the town board’s Sept. 6 public hearing and they have an additional 10 days after that to submit written comments.

The Galesi Group, which owns the industrial park, could not be reached for comment this week.

Statement summary

The industrial park is located on 550 acres in Guilderland Center, along Route 146 and Depot Road. The industrial park has been in operation since 1969 and contains 2.9 million square feet of warehouse space.

The industrial park is highly secure and its contents are a mystery to many Guilderland residents.

Not all of the buildings in the industrial park are owned by the Galesi Group. Two buildings are for the town’s water- and wastewater-treatment plants; a grain elevator is owned by the United Co-op Farmers; and three buildings are owned by Avenue B, C, & E, LLC.

The industrial park area includes a mix of upland deciduous forests, a large landscaped area, and meadowy fields, according to the environmental-impact statement. The blunt-lobe grape fern, an endangered vascular plant, is among the industrial park’s vegetation, the statement says.

Also, Indiana bats, a federally-listed endangered species, and small-footed bats live in the area.

According to Clough, Harbour & Associates, the engineering firm that created the environmental-impact statement, it is not anticipated that the fern or the endangered bats will be affected by future development at the industrial park.

Land use at the industrial park is primarily warehouses and offices to support the warehouses, the statement says. Surrounding the industrial park are: the CSX railroad, along the eastern edge; residences and the Guilderland High School, to the north; residences, agricultural land, and forested land, to the west; and industrial, residential, agricultural, and forested land, to the south.

A cultural resource survey has been conducted at the site, the report says. Within two miles of the industrial park are 22 previously-reported archeological sites, it says. However, it says, little or no information exists about these sites.

The part of the industrial park owned by the Galesi Group consists of five different tax parcels, the statement says. The entire park is in an Empire Zone, so there is an exemption from town and school taxes for a 10-year period.
The report states that new development at the industrial park would be a "revenue generator" for the school district because there are no children living on the site.

Much of the three-inch-thick environmental-impact statement is devoted to the study of traffic issues at the industrial park. In the next 10 years, the report says, new development will generate 845 new vehicle trips in the morning and 922 new vehicle trips in the evening.
"The additional trucks generated by the build-out of the masterplan would not change the overall characteristics of traffic flow on the adjacent roadway network," the statement says.

Recommendations are made, however, for: a traffic signal at Route 146 and Van Buren Boulevard and four-way stop signs at Depot and Meadowdale roads.

Traffic is one of many big issues at the industrial park, Rielly told The Enterprise. Three or four intersections at the industrial park have an accident rate higher than state averages, he said.

New development

According to the environmental-impact statement, the industrial park’s yet-to-be-revealed masterplan proposes 1.6 million square feet of new industrial use; 160,000 square feet of office use; and 190,000 square feet of research and development use. Also to be built are: a truck stop with a 16-unit motel; a convenience store; a diner; a fuel station; restrooms with showers; and 30 tractor-trailer spaces with hook-ups. These are to be used by park tenants rather than the general public.
"Work proposed under the masterplan includes construction at locations noted within the report as being areas of concern," the report states.

The Army used the site for storage and transport from the 1940’s until the depot closed in 1969. Adequate records were not kept of where wastes were buried and the Army Corps of Engineers was assigned to assess the environmental damage stemming from the military use of the Former Schenectady Army Depot, Voorheesville Area.

Most of the former depot land now belongs to the Northeastern Industrial Park. In 2002 and 2003, The Enterprise ran a series of articles outlining the depot’s contamination and its health risks.

The Army formed the Restoration Advisory Board to assess the situation. For at least seven years, members of the board have been urging citizens and government officials to advocate the cleanup.

Since then, funding has been secured to clean up a former burn-pit (Area of Concern 3) from which a toxic plume is emanating. But, the money, about $500,000, was used instead to clean up a site by Guilderland High School where the school district was building a new bus facility.

Last week, it was announced that $650,000 has been earmarked to clean up Area of Concern 2, a residential property on Depot Road, owned by Joan Burns. (See related story.)

The environmental-impact statement briefly outlines development to be built on areas of concern 1 and 7.

AOC 1, the United States Army Southern Landfill, in the southern portion of the depot next to the railroad tracks and bounded by Depot Road, has a pond on the site. It is about 1,500 feet from the main channel of the Black Creek and is classified as a Class 2 site by the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation, meaning it is a significant threat.

AOC 7, the Triangular Disposal Area, in the southeast end, roughly between AOC 1 and 4. has buried debris such as railroad ties and glass bottles.

The report also says that construction could impact AOC 8, the Black Creek, which flows through the property and into the Watervliet Reservoir, Guilderland’s major source of drinking water.
"A lot of building is taking place on AOC’s 1 and 7," Rielly said. "These areas are really seriously polluted."
"We are very much against that," said Thadeus Ausfeld, co-chair with Rielly of the advisory board, at its meeting last Thursday. "....The residents of Guilderland Center should be informed by the town. People living there will be affected."

Supervisor Runion responded through The Enterprise that the town advertised that the report is available through legal notices and other means.

And, he told The Enterprise, "You’re going to write a story on it. We went well beyond what we were required to do."

Gregory Goepfert, the Army Corps of Engineers’ project manager, had not known about the industrial park report, he said last Thursday.
"The property owner is well aware of the AOC," Goepfert said at last week’s meeting. "I have to find out the depth of our authority. This is private property." He said later that he’s not going to do anything until he consults with the Galesi Group.
"We’re spending tax dollars on AOC 1 and for them to just tear it apart," said Ausfeld. "...It’s right next to the Black Creek. They’re going to discharge more into the Black Creek."
"I don’t think the town board had a sense of what the implication would be, or they’d have representatives at this meeting," said Joan Kappel, also an advisory board member.

At nearly every advisory board meeting, members have expressed frustration that no town board members had attended.
"That committee was formed to represent the public and the town," Runion told The Enterprise. "I don’t see Joan Kappel attending our meetings; I don’t see Ted Ausfeld attending our meetings."
He continued, "They are a committee that has specific functions and it doesn’t necessarily require town board members to attend. We’re not at zoning and planning board meetings because we trust our committee members will do their jobs and represent the public."

From reading the report, Rielly told The Enterprise, he assumes that the industrial park won’t build on the areas of concern until the toxic waste is cleaned up.

But, he said, there is no funding to clean up these areas now. He questioned how long the industrial park will wait until it decides to build.
The environmental-impact statement also says that new development will create new stormwater runoff. But, it says, "a stormwater pollution prevention plan would be prepared and implemented for each proposed construction site to specify construction operation control practices and to reduce the generation of pollutants and contact of rainfall with pollutants."
Further information is needed from the United States Army, the report says, on how "groundwater quality could be compromised by the leaching of certain substances from above-ground storage of various types of material."

The studies the report bases its findings on are outdated, Rielly said.
"The two studies they’re referring to are from 1997 and ’98," he said. The Army Corps of Engineers, he said, "has done a lot more studies regarding pollution since then."
"Their past record isn’t good," Rielly said of the industrial park. It had hundreds of wrecked cars on the property, possibly leaking oil into the Black Creek, he said.
"According to the town board meeting, the only thing that will delay the adoption is public comments," Rielly said.

He could not attend the last town board meeting on July 12, he said, when the board declared the draft of the environmental impact statement to be complete.

Rielly was upset, he said, as he watched a tape of the board meeting, when Councilman David Bosworth said with a smile that, because Rielly was not at the meeting, everything must be okay with the report.

The board then announced that, from July 12, the public has until Sept. 6 to read the report. It is available at the Guilderland Public Library and Town Hall.

Rielly and other advisory members are going to thoroughly examine the industrial park’s report and draft written comments, he said. Since it’s summer, many advisory board members are out of town, giving them less time to devote to studying the report, he said.

The restoration advisory board has been working on contamination problems at the former Army depot for years, but members were allowed no input on the report until now, Rielly said.
"We know it’s private property," he said of the industrial park. "We can’t go on it. We’re not welcome."
He concluded, "Nobody was concerned with the availability of gas until the prices went higher...We’re a crisis society." Until Guilderland residents turn on their taps and see dirty water, they won’t respond, he said.

— Melissa Hale-Spencer contributed reporting from the July 21 restoration advisory board meeting.