Phase I Environmental Database Services

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 difficult geology on Ithaca's South Hill makes it virtually impossible to actually remove toxic contamination from beneath neighborhoods, according to staff from the state Department of Environmental Conservation.

The DEC hosted a public meeting Thursday night at Ithaca Town Hall, attended by roughly 25 people, to present and answer questions on the agency's Proposed Remedial Action Plan for the neighborhood north and downhill from Emerson Power Transmission.

Five years ago, Ken Deschere was diagnosed with a very rare disease: stage IV tonsillar cancer.

He underwent three different surgeries in just over two weeks, and over the next two months was subject to 33 doses each of two types of radiation therapy - at 50 minutes a pop.

A South Hill resident since 1981, Deschere and his wife Regina live about one block downhill from Emerson Power Transmission, a polluted compound listed on New York's State Registry of Inactive Hazardous Waste Disposal sites.

ITHACA — While the Department of Environmental Conservation investigates a potential state superfund site on North Meadow Street, less than two blocks away another site with the same type of contamination was identified this summer.

ITHACA — Audrey Whyte isn't worried — yet.

She knows it's not great that the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation recently tested her home for toxic chemicals. Yet, the daycare center she operates from her house on North Meadow Street is doing fine, and she has plenty of friends who stop by regularly.

Outside her pale green home, surrounded by a bright menagerie of toys, conversation is about the toddlers driving plastic cars, the upcoming women's conference she's organizing and errands to run — not carcinogens.

ITHACA - State officials acknowledged Thursday that they need to "fix" their handling of the contaminated former Morse Chain site and their communications with affected residents.

Speaking at a public hearing on the infiltration of toxic vapors into indoor air, G. Anders Carlson, director of the Division of Environmental Health Investigation for the state Department of Health, cited the need for more effective dialogue with neighbors and a more aggressive approach to pursuing remediation of the site.

1928 - 1983: Borg Warner owns the company and building on Aurora Street known as Morse Chain, which manufactures automotive components. Prior to 1983, Morse Industrial uses the solvent trichlorethene, or TCE, to degrease metal parts.

1983: The plant is purchased by Emerson and becomes Emerson Power Transmission.

1987: Investigations reveal TCE has leaked into soil and groundwater from an underground fire water reservoir on the property. Emerson reports the spill to the state Department of Environmental Conservation.

Good morning Chairman Tom DiNapoli, Assemblywoman Barbara Lifton and the rest of the state Assembly Environmental Conservation Committee.

First, thank you for coming to town to hear testimony about local soil contamination issues, most notably the still growing investigation into the release of trichloroethene -- the now infamous substance called TCE -- into
the ground on the hillside overlooking the city of Ithaca's south side. The weight and the light this committee's public hearing will bring to this insidious public health threat is desperately needed.

In the year since I brought pollution hazards at the former Morse Chain factory to the public's attention, it has become apparent that coping with the site's lingering problems will be extraordinarily challenging. That is why I believe residents, responsible parties, government authorities and plant workers must do their utmost to forge a favorable resolution to this matter without further delay.