Kingston may seize contaminated scrap yard

By Paul Kirby, Freeman staff Daily Freeman February 12, 2006

KINGSTON - The city may use eminent-domain powers to seize a contaminated scrap yard on the Rondout Creek shore if there is no significant movement soon by the state or the property owner to remove hazardous waste from the site, Mayor James Sottile says.
Sottile was responding to a suggestion last week by Alderman Robert Senor, R-Ward 8, that the city consider taking the B. Millens & Sons property on East Strand through eminent-domain law to help expedite waterfront revitalization plans.
The mayor said he wants the state Department of Environmental Conservation to take action on the property but admitted he was reluctant for the agency to move forward last year because a plan was in the works to relocate the scrap yard.
Sottile said that deal now has fallen through, along with negotiations between Millens and Brooklyn attorney Robert Iannucci to buy the property. Last year, Iannucci bought the former L&M auto parts yard nearby and cleared it of junk cars and other debris.
"If the DEC does not get more aggressive and the property owner does not get more aggressive in cleaning this up, the city is going to get aggressive," Sottile said.
Common Council Minority Leader Richard Cahill Jr. said seizing the Millens site through eminent-domain powers would be going too far.
"I think it opens up too many doors," said Cahill, R-Ward 6. "This could become the normal thing to do, rather than the extreme step, and that is what scares me."
Cahill said he supports the use of eminent-domain seizures for such things as road construction but does not think they should be used to enforce the cleanup of a property for possible private development.
He said the city should use the tools at its disposal, including issuing citations for violation of city codes or state laws governing pollution. Resorting to eminent-domain proceedings could set a precedent for the city to take other properties, he said.
According to city records, the state Department of Environmental Conservation notified B. Millens & Sons, in a letter dated Oct. 8, 2005, that a plan submitted on July 27, 2005, to clean up pollution at the site was inadequate. The letter, from Robert W. Schick of the agency's Division of Environmental Remediation, said a meeting was to be held Oct. 18, but it could not be determined Friday whether that meeting occurred.
Sam Millens, a representative of the scrap yard, could not be reached for comment on Friday.
The letter said the Millens property had been given a Class 2A designation in the state's Registry of Inactive Hazardous Waste Disposal sites.
"The Class 2A designation is a temporary classification assigned to sites where there is confirmed disposal of hazardous waste but there is inadequate data on hazardous waste impact to the environment and human health to assign them to the five classifications specified by law," Schick wrote. "Since the initial listing of the site, additional data has been obtained which supports reclassification of the site to a Class 2, which is defined as a site posing a significant threat to the public health or environment and action is required."
Alderwoman Ann Marie DiBella said she supports whatever steps the city needs to take, including the possibility of seizing the Millens site, to protect nearby properties from pollution. DiBella, D-Ward 5, referred to an environmental report, commissioned by Iannucci, that suggests waterfront properties he purchased were polluted by contaminants from the Millens site.
"Why would a city continue to allow property to have contamination seeping onto other property and not take the most aggressive action they can take?" DiBella said. "We have a duty to protect the people living in the surrounding area."

©Daily Freeman 2006

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