NEW HARTFORD'S TOXIC WASTE DUMP SITE

[swampfox]

I thought I have seen it all on cover-ups and conspiracies of silence within village, town and city governments. However, I believe what I have just read "takes the cake!"

It appears that Town of New Hartford elected officials have kept the facts behind the Scully (SOS) Septic Tank Toxic Waste Dump Site located on 204 Valley View Road, New Hartford, New York a SECRET for many, many years.

Recently, representatives from Lockheed Martin, NYS Department of Environmental Conservation and the NYS Department of Health informed the Town Officials that they would be present at a regularly scheduled town board meeting held on Wednesday, February 25, 2009.

There remained one big problem. Town Officials did not notify town residents whose homes are within a one mile radius - North, South, East or West of the impacted toxic waste site. Yes, the town did not tell anyone. Fortunately, WTVH-5, Catherine Hawley and her colleague did two television interviews with a town resident and town officials. Dave Reynolds in his interview with WTVH-5 lied to the press official when he stated, "...we always informed the town residents in these matters." Well, Mr. Reynolds, if saying that under a penalty of perjury would be indicted already.

Fortunately, for town residents, Concerned Citizens For Honest & Open Government ( www.newhartfordnyonline.blogspot.com ) and Strikeslip authored fact-based commentary. Thank God for honesty and integrity in our bloggers. However, the Observer Dispatch, Dan Miner was there at this meeting and his story reported in the O.D. on February 26, 2009 was so full of holes that Utica's Southern Reservoir could have passed through the paper in three minutes or less. Sorry Dan, but the truth is the truth.

[clarencebunsen]

Not sure why you think it was a secret. It was in the news (paper & TV) big time in 1994 when it was news & since then whenever there were any new developments to report. If you drove on Valley View any time in the 2nd half of the 90's, you wwould have had to be blind to miss the orange fences, warning signs & monitoring wells.

My friends who lived on Cascade drive during that period were well aware of the situation and made sure full disclosure was made prior to their sale of their property a few years later.

Although everyone is dumping on the town officials, the blog you cite quotes the OD article "...State and City officials are downplaying the problems at a site contaminated by toxic pollutants."

I don't know of anyone who has produced any evidence of any continuing problems at the site, but if there are some it seems to me that the anger should be directed at the DEC over at least 3 administrations.

Although my natural tendency is to compassion, for the good of the species those who claim that they didn't know should be allow to drink of the water down hill of the site.

[dgriffin]

I thought Cavallo's was New Hartford's toxic dump the last time I had a pizza there.

[clarencebunsen]

Cavallo's has pizza? Now that's a well kept secret. Probably engineered by those folks at Butler Hall.

[arkangel]

Orange fences do not tell what is there nor what type of work is being done. I do agree with swampfox that there has been a tendency to downplay or not inform people of the seriousness of PCB's and other chemical contaminants.

I read in this week's O.D. (Tuesday or Wednesday - maybe it was Monday's). There was an article on page 3A which talked about Vapors from areas that are chemically contaminated. What the readers did not find out was that the website put out there by the Observer Dispatch did not list the correct NYS DEC website where these issues still prevail.

I found this DEC website and noticed that the Scully (SOS) Toxic Waste Dumpsite is still very much an issue. Why then are Town Officials "down-playing" the seriousness of these issues?

There are 57 acres or more owned by Don-Al Real Estate and other Carbone family members. Are they trying to sell building lots on land which has been contaminated and then some 30 or 40 years later cancer problems arise in their children and family members?

I think the DEC and NYS Dept. of Health and even our local County Health leaders are guilty in their failure to track this dump site for cancer problems. Has anyone ever seen or heard of a cluster study being done at or in close proximity to this hazardous waste site?

I would encourage anyone having information on this dumpsite and pictures to send them to Concerned Citizens For Honest & Open Government. This Group does appears to care and it is through their websites that information is being made available to the general public.

[Clipper]

Yes Clarence, Cavallo's does have pizza. I like much of Cavallo's menu, or did, when it was still a family destination, rather than the "cigar bar/sports bar" that it became in later years. They used to make a clam sauce that was out of this world when poured over fettucini. Their Pizza? Not good! In fact the last time I ordered a pizza there, it was terrible. I didn't even finish it.

[dgriffin]

Mar 14, 2009 9:15:08 GMT -5 arkangel said:

Has anyone ever seen or heard of a cluster study being done at or in close proximity to this hazardous waste site?

[/b][/quote]

From what I've read (I'm no expert), cluster studies of such small areas are notoriously inaccurate. We have high ground radon here in the Catskills that has been correlated to a higher than average incidence of cancer. But the studies are suspect due to the statistical small number problem.

[dgriffin]

I think I just lost a post, so if this is a duplicate, please excuse me. Mrs. Dave ate at Cavallo's the night before the Boilermaker last summer, while I was at the worker's picnic. She said the food was terrible, and nothing like what we remembered from years ago when we took the kids there while visiting my parents.

Butler Hall ... Butler Hall ... it'll come to me....

[clarencebunsen]

Butler Hall... seat of government for the village of New Hartford... also houses some of the town offices... located on Genesee St just south of Cavallos... huge controversy when the town proposed buying one of the former Partlow buildings on Campion Rd & moving offices from the Butler building, the Maden building and the building on New Hartford St.

Why does the village still exist?

[swampfox]

clarencebunsen:

Did you hear that the Town's elected officials are having the Kellogg Road Building situated adjacent to the Madden Public Safety Bldg? It appears the elected officials want to sell this building to the highest bidder and use these monies to acquire 19 Campion Road.

Justice William Virkler has been deeply involved in this matter and he sure wants a new Court Room. Why? His ego?

Time to close down the Madden Safety Bldg and consolidate town services with the City of Utica or the County. It was rumored that the so-called 911 Calls made to the New Hartford Unit were not all for 911 but is a "mix" of gobbledy gook - if you know what I mean. Chief Ray Philo really knows how to skew data when it does not fit.

[clarencebunsen]

It's common knowledge that the building is shut down, I think it's even been reported a couple times. I haven't seen any marketing effort on it. I don't really see why anyone would buy it.

I've read lots of suggestions that Bill Virkler is financially involved in the effort to purchase the building on Campion Rd, but I've never seen any evidence that I thought stood up. It's been marketed by Ed LaBarge for 2-3 years.

I really would not want want to see any consolidation of services that would increase the likelyhood of having to go to Utica City Court. I've had 2 traffic tickets in my life. For the first I was clearly guilty, mailed in my fine & was done with it.

The 2nd one was in the City of Utica. The officer was actually embarassed when he wrote the ticket. He apologized when he handed it to me and said that they were doing a traffic enforcement blitz on the Arterial during evening rush hour for "public visibility."

I decided it was BS & decided to fight it. My appearance date was on a Tuesday morning so I had to take a 1/2 day vacation to appear. Sat around for an hour until it was announced that the DA's office was unable to send a prosecutor & our choices were to plead guilty of wait until we could be called up one-by-one to reschedule.

On my reschedule date 2 weeks later I took another 1/2 day of vacation to have someone tell a bored judge that I was an up-standing citizen & a prosecutor agree to a plea to a "violation" and a fine.

At least the NH Court has evening hours. Even though Utica has a declining population & continually pleads poverty, the amount that has been spent on the expansion of the public safety complex on Oriskany is amazing. .

I don't put much stock in rumors of a "mix" of gobbledy gook, whatever that means. It has always seemed ridiculous that Oneida County has 3 911 dispatch centers. Obviously both NH & Utica dispatch centers are redundant. In the area I lived previously, seven counties with a combined population of about 20 times that of Oneida County were dispatched from a single 911 center.

[frankcor]

Consolidate 911??? Burn the blasphemer!

[Swimmy]

Mar 15, 2009 14:18:40 GMT -5 clarencebunsen said:

I've read lots of suggestions that Bill Virkler is financially involved in the effort to purchase the building on Campion Rd, but I've never seen any evidence that I thought stood up.

How about his own words to me? I know I'm rather outspoken about my distaste for new hartford's political climate, but there was a time when I was not so knowledgeable about the bs. At one point, I revered bill. During that time of reverence, he stated point blank that he wants that building turned into the new courthouse. That not only would he make a nice penny on the transaction, but it would not require the pesky voters to get in the way and mess it up like in March 2007.

If I remember correctly, Bill's name is on the deed to the property as a trust estate. He's supposed to keep $300k set aside for the property, in trust. And I wonder why deperna took the records offline... privacy was merely a pretense for the real reason....