3
Mid Hudson Times, Wednesday, August 30, 2017
Clean Water Project demands DoD take action on PFOS
Continued from page 1
Recreation Pond,” said Brown, writing
the sentence down with a black sharpie
on a white sheet of paper. “We need a
filtration system at Recreation Pond.”
The pond – found with 84 times the
advisory level set by the EPA last year
for perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) in
drinking water – is the main entry point
of PFOS flowing into the city’s drinking
watershed from the air base.
The Catskill Aqueduct
The discussion addressed the impending
shutdown of the Catskill Aqueduct, the
city’s current source of drinking water.
The city was forced to switch to using
aqueduct water following the discovery
of PFOS at Washington Lake in the spring
last year. The lake serves as the city’s
primary drinking-water reservoir.
Recreation Pond must be remediated
before the city switches back to
Washington Lake water, Brown insisted.
“We’re not going back on (lake) water
until this has taken place,” she said. The
pond’s PFOS-tainted water flows directly
into Silver Stream, which flowed into the
lake through diversion gates under the
intersection of routes 207 and 300.
(The temporary closure of the Catskill
Aqueduct has been pushed back to early
2018, city Water Superintendent Wayne
Vradenburgh confirmed on Monday. The
closure was previously scheduled to take
place in October. Vradenburgh said a
new filtration system designed to remove
PFOS and other contaminants from water
flowing through the city water filtration
plant would be up and running before the
new closure date.)
Sampling by the state Department
of Environmental Conservation last year
revealed PFOS contamination throughout
the watershed. The source of the
contamination was quickly determined
to be the air base, where PFOS-laden fire
foam had been used for years in drills and
fires.
The DoD has yet to take responsibility
for the contamination, nor has it
announced plans for remediation at the
base or within the watershed. The federal
agency stated it would carry out its own
investigation of contamination at the
base over the summer, but has yet to
disclose results.
Threats throughout watershed
The problem extends way beyond the
air base, said Quassaick Creek Watershed
member Peter Smith, citing potential
Newburgh Clean Water Project members say dense development along Route 300 and areas
surrounding Washington Lake threatens the city’s drinking water.
threats from runoff, road spills, new
construction, capped landfills and low-
lying areas of Route 300, a stone’s throw
away from the lake. “Part of the problem
we face is that our drinking watershed
is outside the city’s boundaries,” said
Smith.
“Lake Washington is in both the
Town of New Windsor and the Town of
Newburgh,” he said. “These towns have
no obligation in their planning and zoning
to accommodate the City of Newburgh,”
thanks to the state’s “home-rule” law,
Smith said.
Dense development within the
watershed comes within feet of streams
and tributaries feeding Washington Lake,
Smith said, noting a bevy of big-box stores
and distribution centers in the area.
The New York State Thruway 87 also
runs directly through the watershed,
Smith pointed out, and so would
the Pilgrim Pipeline, if approved and
constructed. “There are endless
vulnerabilities to contaminants and
emergencies,” Smith said.
A PowerPoint presentation mapped out
the details of the watershed: Washington
Lake was at the center; Patton Brook was
seen north of the lake and Silver Stream
was visible to the south.
Though it eventually makes its way
into the lake, the upper Patton Brook is
not listed as “source drinking water” by
the state Department of Health, Smith
said.
The slideshow revealed that west of the
Discharge Elimination System (SPDES)
permit to discharge into Silver Stream,
which was, until recently, categorized as
a non-drinking water source by the DEC.
This detail may have contributed
significantly to the PFOS contamination
that took place at the lake, Newburgh
City Manager Michael Ciaravino said at
City Hall in July. “If it had been properly
designated as a Class-A stream, some
of the discharge practices may not have
been allowed to occur,” he charged.
Smith outlined several specific actions
to be taken by the state in order to safeguard
the watershed: accurate identification of
watershed source waters such as Silver
Stream, requiring developers consider
the “safety of the public’s drinking water”
for project approvals, and forming a state-
level authority to regulate land use in
municipal watersheds.
City Councilwoman Karen Mejia urged
residents to stay vigilant and continue to
pressure lawmakers and state and federal
agencies to take action. “We have to,
collectively, not lose steam,” Mejia said.
lake, the Port Authority of New York and
New Jersey was issued a State Pollution
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