August 14, 2000

By FAX

Honorable John Cahill
Commissioner
New York Department of Environmental Conservation
50 Wolf Road
Albany, NY 12233

Greetings:

More than two weeks have passed since I wrote to ask you to take immediate action to protect the environment and public health from reported lead hazards in a popular recreation area in the City of Ithaca. To date, you have not responded to any of the urgent requests that I outlined in my letter of 7/27/00. That is why I would like to reiterate my call for a comprehensive response on the part of your agency without additional delay.

First, citizens can still enter the contaminated area without any restriction whatsoever. No fence has been erected. No warning signs are posted. Hiking trails, swimming areas and scenic vistas remain accessible despite reported levels of lead up to 215,000 parts per million. What possible rationale can there be for allowing the public to continue to be exposed to this risk?

Second, no meeting has been held to educate citizens about the lead hazards. An informational presentation is particularly imperative because Alan Cohen, the Mayor of Ithaca, has characterized the lead problem as follows: "...it poses no immediate danger to the public, you can pick it up and it will not harm you. It also does not disintegrate into dust, which we know is toxic in lead paint." See attached newsclip. These statements are factually erroneous and must be corrected in order to protect public health.

Finally, neither the Ithaca Gun facility nor the adjoining lead-contaminated area along Fall Creek gorge has been listed in the Inactive Hazardous Waste Disposal Site Registry and no clean up of lead shot or other toxic chemicals has been publicly discussed or undertaken. Given that your agency has known about these hazards for nearly five years, delay seems inexcusable.

For that reason, you should work with the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency to undertake an emergency lead removal action and hold responsible parties liable for the cost of that work. I discussed this suggestion with John S. Malleck, Chief, Pre-Remedial Section, Emergency and Remedial Response Division. He expressed EPA's willingness to consider a request for assistance from your agency. I urge you to submit that request immediately.

Your agency should also work with EPA to clean-up all of the toxic chemicals at the gun factory and the adjoining contaminated area. I understand that your agency may list the Ithaca Gun site in the Inactive Hazardous Waste Disposal Site Registry, but not the adjoining area where the highest levels of lead-contamination have been reported. Unless you list both sites, which are owned by separate responsible parties, an extremely ill-advised precedent would be set. The letter and spirit of the applicable law and regulations clearly require your agency to list all of the sites that meet the criteria established by your agency.

Moreover, the lead contaminated property is clearly an inactive hazardous waste disposal site. Consequently, it should not be eligible for financial support under the "brownfields" program. Responsible parties should instead be held liable for the full cost of clean up costs.

Finally, I would like to underscore the need for a comprehensive response to all of the pollution sources that I have recently brought to your attention. Those sites include the 30 "Abandoned Landfills" identified by the County Department of Health, Newman Golf Course (reported garbage/ash landfill), Cherry Street Extension (reported garbage/ash landfilled area) and hundreds of non-point pollution sources that threaten Southern Cayuga Lake.

Above all, before the former City of Ithaca Landfill is allowed to be redeveloped it must be cleaned up in order to prevent further degradation of local water quality that already exceeds applicable standards. Since the dump has never been properly closed and capped, at a minimum it should be required to receive a stormwater permit to control its pollution releases. If your agency's recent investigation identifies extensive contamination hazards, the site should be the subject of a full-scale inactive hazardous waste disposal site remediation.

Thank you for giving your prompt attention to the matters specified in this letter. I look forward to your timely reply.

cc:
Hon. A. Cohen/Mayor, City of Ithaca
Hon. Jeanne Fox, EPA Region II Administrator
John S. Malleck, Chief, Pre-Remedial Section, Emergency and Remedial Response Div.
Hon. M. Luster/125th Assembly District
Hon. R. Brodsky/Chair Assembly Environmental Conservation Committee
Hon. J. Seward/50th Senatorial District
Hon. M. Hinchey/26th Congressional District
Hon. B. Mink/Chair, Tompkins County Board of Representatives
Hon. Eliot Spitzer, Esq./New York Attorney General
Peter Lehner, Esq./Chief, Environmental Protection Bureau, Office of Attorney General
J. Anderson, PE/Tompkins County Department of Health
K. Lynch, Esq./Regional Seven DEC
S. Eidt, PE/Regional Seven DEC