DEC Info Session Describes Taconic PFOA Contamination
by Alex Brooks
On November 19 from six to eight pm DEC staff gave an update on the remedial investigation currently underway at the Taconic Plastics site in Petersburgh. Phase 1 of the investigation has been completed and a report on the results was submitted to NYSDEC around March 1 of this year. It involved extensive sampling of surface water, groundwater, surface soil and subsurface soil on or near the Taconic campus on Coonbrook Road and on the west side of Route 22.
The online information session was hosted by Ian Beilby, Section Chief at the Division of Environmental Remediation at DEC, and Barbara Firebaugh, a DEC engineering geologist who is overseeing the Taconic investigation.
Firebaugh showed maps of the testing sites. She said significant contamination was found throughout the site at anywhere from 1.1 to 99 parts per billion, but the greatest concentrations were found in a wet area behind building 1 (the building on the west side of Coonbrook Road) and in a drywell in the middle of building 2, both of which were used at one time for direct disposal of process water. She said in the drywell in building 2, 43,000 parts per billion was found in the soil and 5,600 parts per billion in the water.
Firebaugh said the Phase 2 workplan was approved on September 8 of this year, and work on it has begun. The plan is to expand the sampling of surface water and stormwater runoff on the site and in adjacent upstream and downstream areas and add monitoring wells both on the site and in adjacent off-site areas to better define the distribution of PFAS concentration and evaluate off-site migration of PFAS compounds. This phase will also test soil and surface water in off-site areas to assess the potential impacts related to deposition of PFAS from historic air emissions. 24 sites have been selected for this study, some of them being a mile or a mile and a half away from the Taconic campus.
Phase 2 will also include a preliminary study to identify actual or potential impacts to fish and wildlife resources.
The complete Phase 2-a Workplan is posted on the Petersburgh site page on DEC’s web site, which can be accessed through a link on the Town of Petersburgh web site under the PFOA information tab. There are also many other documents there concerning the Taconic investigation, the landfill investigation and PFOA sampling in Petersburgh.
This presentation also included a segment by Justin Deming from the Bureau of Environmental Exposure Investigation at NYSDOH. He said because the maximum contaminant levels for PFAS chemicals has been reduced significantly since the testing of private wells was done in 2016 and 2017, the Department of Health is going to return to re-test and re-assess private wells and the need for POET systems to be installed in them to remove PFAS chemicals. The current MCL is 10 parts per trillion, and all public water systems in the State are now required to test to make sure PFAS chemicals in the water are below this level. Deming said wells which previously tested at 5 ppt or less need not be resampled since they are below the level of concern for the current MCL standard. But for those above 10 ppt the Department of Health will seek to re-test the well water and will also offer treatment system installation without a re-test.
Beilby also mentioned that a large multi-site health study is now getting under way, led by epidemiologists at the University of Albany, and Petersburgh residents will be eligible to sign up to be part of that study, but he did not offer any information yet on how to sign up.
In the Q & A session at the end, Petersburgh resident Ira Share said Petersburgh has a C-8 committee that meets monthly. He said he had heard that DEC sends a representative to the monthly Community Partnership meetings in Hoosick Falls and wondered if they would send a representative to the Petersburgh C-8 Committee meetings on a monthly basis. Firebaugh said there are multiple investigations going on in Hoosick Falls and a lot more activity so there are a lot more practical details to discuss there on a monthly basis. She said she didn’t think there would be enough new information to discuss in Petersburgh to make it worthwhile to send a representative every month. She said they will do another online presentation once they accumulate enough new information to make it worthwhile. She guesses that the next one would be when Phase 2 investigations are completed, which she estimated would be about a year from now.
The Town of Petersburgh’s consulting engineer Tom Suozzo said the recently completed report funded by an Emerging Contaminants grant had identified several sites as promising places to seek alternative sources of water for Petersburgh’s public water system that might be free of PFOA or at least lower in PFOA content than the existing wells, and he wondered if test wells for this purpose could be incorporated into the Phase 2 investigation. Beilby said that is an interesting suggestion, but he couldn’t answer it on the spot, and he invited Suozzo to continue a discussion on this topic with DEC officials after the meeting.