Clean Up Ithaca

An unannounced spot check by the federal Environmental Protection Agency found that the Village of Cayuga Heights' wastewater treatment plant was out of compliance with some regulations tied to its discharge permit -- though within acceptable limits on what the plant discharged to Cayuga Lake.

The EPA conducted the check last October, but sent the results of its inspection to the village just last week. The village provided the documents to this newspaper Wednesday in response to a Freedom Of Information Law request.

Cayuga Heights has no plans to accept gas drilling wastewater in the foreseeable future, Mayor Jim Gilmore said Tuesday.

"Not in the near future, and based on what we know today, not even in the distant future. But I think it's a subject we'll probably have to revisit. Probably the industry will force us to," Gilmore said. "Already in the last couple months I've had private entities come to me and talk about processing drill water and I told them we're not in the business of accepting drill water at this time."

Three months after work halted at Ithaca Gun, there's still no word about when or if demolition debris piles will be removed, though the developer is still eager to move forward on redevelopment plans.

In August, the developers behind the proposal to demolish the gun factory and replace it with high-end condos announced that because of cleanup cost overruns, they didn't have the money to pay their contractors, and work stopped.

Cornell questions validity of state analysis

ITHACA - Lake Source Cooling may be negatively impacting water quality in southern Cayuga Lake, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation said in a letter to Cornell University this week.

Cayuga Heights says there was no violation

Cayuga Heights may have violated its own law in accepting gas-drilling wastewater that exceeded standards established to protect its treatment plant and Cayuga Lake.

Meanwhile, a regional engineer from the state Department of Environmental Conservation told the village it was OK to continue accepting the waste without a completed study of what kinds of wastewater came to the plant. DEC policy - reaffirmed in a December 2008 memo - requires such analyses before a plant accepts gas-drilling waste.

More than three million gallons of wastewater from natural gas drilling have been accepted by the Village of Cayuga Heights since May 2008. Cayuga Heights' Publicly Owned Treatment Works - known to most as a water treatment plant - has temporarily suspended this practice, however, effective April 2.

ITHACA — Cornell University will be required to include a controversial analysis of the impact of their lake source cooling project in order to renew their discharge permit with the state Department of Environmental Conservation.

DEC spokeswoman Lori O'Connell said Wednesday that the DEC has decided to require Cornell to evaluate site 7, which sits south of and closest to Cornell's lake source cooling discharge, against site 4, a control site at roughly the same location on the other side of the lake.

A draft work plan for cleanup at the South Hill Business Campus brownfield site is open for public comment from now until Jan. 24.

The deadline for public comment on the coal tar cleanup at the NYSEG Ithaca Court Street site is this Sunday, Sept. 30.

Little time remains for residents to read the plan and submit their thoughts on the cleanup and remediation process that could occur as early as January 2008.

ITHACA — Low levels of TCE contamination found at South Hill Elementary School likely came from a sewer line from the old National Cash Register factory, rather than from Emerson Power Transmission, according to a Wednesday press release from Emerson.