Toxics Targeting in the News

The Emerson plant has been vacant for a year. The incoming mayor, Svante Myrick, plans to turn the plant into a residential area, which some believe is hazardous because of contamination.

Ithaca’s mayor-elect has big plans for the Emerson Power Transmission facility, with a controversial proposal to develop housing at the polluted building located off Route 96B.

The Emerson plant has been vacant for a year. The incoming mayor, Svante Myrick, plans to turn the plant into a residential area, which some believe is hazardous because of contamination.

Svante Myrick, Ithaca’s newly elected mayor, wants to develop the Emerson site into residential housing and the plant itself into a combined heat and power plant. However, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation has determined that the area had been contaminated with trichloroethene, a recognized carcinogen.

Myrick said the plan isn’t necessarily his, but he sees it as an opportunity for Ithaca.

“It’s a vision that’s informed by the entire community,” Myrick said. “A lot of people have been talking about it and working on it. So it’s the plan that I will pursue, and it’s a plan that I’m excited about.”

Ithaca -- Ithaca activists say the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's announcement of a new health assessment for trichloroethylene labeling it as a known carcinogen is a moral victory but not all that useful in efforts to clean up the South Hill neighborhood.

Trichloroethylene, or TCE, was used by the Morse Chain factory, which occupied the facility now known as the former Emerson Power Transmission plant. Use of the chemical ended in the late 1970s, but it remains at the site and downhill from it, in the soil and rock beneath the South Hill neighborhood.

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation is currently investigating oil found in Fall Creek, which likely originated at Cornell’s Arts and Sciences Alumni Building on 726 University Avenue.

DEC officials have told multiple media outlets that although the cause and source of contamination remains uncertain, the creek is safe.

Wastewater from the animal carcass digester at Cornell University's College of Veterinary Medicine overflowed for at least 14 hours last Friday night into Saturday afternoon before the spill was discovered.

A Dec. 12 letter obtained by The Journal from a Cornell engineer to the state Department of Environmental Conservation and the Ithaca Area Wastewater Treatment Facility detailed a series of errors that resulted in the spill into sanitary and storm sewers. On Feb. 19, another series of errors at the facility also dumped treated vet waste into Ithaca sewers.