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Residents urge Fort Edward to probe soil-processing operations after filings list industrial wastes
Summary
Residents told the Town Board that documents tied to ESMI/Clean Earth suggest the facility has processed fuels, papermill byproducts, biosolids, PCBs and PFAS; the town attorney said he would ask DEC which permits are in effect and what tests have been done.
Amanda Durkee and other residents told the Fort Edward Town Board on June 8 that materials processed at a nearby soil-treatment site may include more than “clean soil,” and urged the town to investigate land-use permitting and testing.
Durkee cited an appeal filing she said was submitted to the Village Zoning Board of Appeals by the law firm West Firm; she told the board the filing includes an itemized list of materials the firm says have been processed at the site since the early 1990s, including “Fuel Oils, White Oils, Lubricating Oils, Metal Working Oil, Electrical Oil, Petroleum Greases, Petroleum Solvents, Natural Waxes, Synthetic Waxes/Plasticizers, Animal Oil, Vegetable Oil, Industrial Oils, Coal Tar, PCB’s, Papermill Bi-Product, Bio-solids and papermill sludge, PFA’s.” Durkee said the town should not continue to refer to the product as simply “soil.”
Town Attorney Bill Nikas told the board the appropriate next step is to ask the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) which permits are in effect for the facility, what tests have been performed on its product, and whether DEC has received required documentation. “We can ask DEC what permits are still in effect, what tests have been done on the product and put them on notice that we want to hear if there is anything else going there,” Nikas said.
Resident Katie DeGroot told the board that, in the Village ZBA meeting record, the DEC permits do not require returned soil to be “100% remediated” and that the town therefore does not know the exact composition of material arriving or being stored in the facility. “As a Town we don’t know what is in that soil and I think it’s worth finding out,” DeGroot said.
Councilman Suprenant and other board members said the town will seek information from DEC and provide a formal response to Durkee after the town attorney receives DEC’s guidance. Durkee said she had submitted an email requesting a formal response and asked the town to pursue both land-use authority questions at the municipal level and DEC permitting and testing records.
No representative of ESMI/Clean Earth or the company’s counsel spoke at the meeting; no DEC official was present. The board did not take a formal enforcement action at the June 8 meeting; Attorney Nikas described the next step as corresponding with DEC to clarify permit status and test results. The board said it would provide Durkee a formal reply after the town attorney receives information from DEC.
What’s next: The town attorney will contact DEC to request permit and testing information; residents said the Village ZBA will continue to consider related appeals on its schedule.
