State seeks scrapyard cleanup

By Paul Kirby, Freeman staff Daily Freeman February 14, 2006

KINGSTON - The state Department of Environmental Conservation is reviewing a plan to clean up contamination at a scrapyard on East Strand on the Rondout Creek waterfront.
Gabriel DeMarco, a spokeswoman for the agency, said B. Millens & Sons Inc. has submitted a cleanup proposal for their property and the Department of Environmental Conservation wants the work done in the spring.
"We plan to have this cleanup plan finalized by early spring with Millens beginning the actual cleanup as soon as spring weather permits it," DeMarco said in an e-mail. "The DEC will work to keep this forward momentum at the Millens property going and remains committed to seeing cleanup begin at the property this spring."
DeMarco added that department engineers met with Millens representatives in October "to demand" that movement be made "quickly to remove known contamination."
Mayor James Sottile said that he was "glad to see that the DEC is giving this matter the attention it deserves," particularly in wake of reports suggesting that pollution from the site is winding up on other nearby properties.
But Sottile reiterated his position that if no plan is developed by the spring with cleanup beginning shortly thereafter, the city may seek to obtain the property through eminent domain.
"I think the city would have no other choice but to take the property and ensure that it is cleaned up properly," Sottile said. "Eminent domain would be a last resort."
Sottile spoke of taking the property by eminent domain last week after Alderman Robert Senor, R-Ward 8, suggested earlier in the week that the city consider such action to pave the way for waterfront revitalization.
On Monday, Senor said he was "skeptical" of the Department of Environmental Conservation's efforts and whether the property would truly be cleaned up.
"It sounds to me like sugar coating and I will believe it when I see it in the spring," said Senor.
Meanwhile, Kingston Fire Chief Richard Salzmann on Monday said that movement on violations noted in a report that the Building Safety Division sent to Millens' owners in September 2005 is being made. The report said the scrapyard was operating illegally on a particular section of the property. Salzmann, who heads the Building Safety Division, said some work had been done moving toward compliance with zoning regulations.
"They have been moving some of the scrap from the property," Salzmann said. "They have worked toward some of these issues that we have raised."
One lawmaker, Alderman Richard Cahill Jr., R-Ward 6, the Common Council's minority leader, has said suggestions of using eminent domain in the Millens property case are illustrative of government going too far. Cahill said while he supported such action in the case of building roads, he does not favor it as an enforcement tool to try to get property cleaned up or for the possibility of private development on the waterfront parcel.

©Daily Freeman 2006

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