Better contamination testing sought at former IBM site

DEC wants detection efforts to include wider array of chemicals

TOWN OF ULSTER, N.Y. >> The state Department of Environmental Conservation wants a bigger and better contamination-testing system on the iPark 87 property to cover a wider array of chemicals in the groundwater underneath the former IBM complex.

Town Board members discussed the request during a meeting Thursday. They voted to take on the lead agency designation for a proposed 2,000-squarefoot building and upgraded contamination treatment equipment near the Enterprise Drive ramp onto U.S. Route 209.

“DEC has asked IBM to improve the treatment facilities to take into consideration the ability to treat the groundwater for these (new) types of chemicals should they be measured at a level that they require treatment,” Supervisor James Quigley said.

Quigley added that the additional testing and treatment capabilities are being requested in response to state officials taking on new types of contamination concerns in areas such as Hoosick Falls and the Newburgh city reservoir.

“It brought into focus for the DEC the (chemical) PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid) and its impact on drinking water,” he said. “So there are new standards developing as it relates to PFOA, PFAA (perfluorinated alkyl acids) and dioxins. They are chemicals that nobody paid attention to before and the issue is what is the appropriate level to detect versus not detect.”

While the iPark 87 campus was purchased by National Resources last year following court battles between Ulster County and former owner Alan Ginsberg, who dubbed the site TechCity since buying it in 1998, the responsibility for continuing cleanup of a sprawling groundwater chemical plume remains IBM’s responsibility. In 1956, the computer giant converted the former vacant farmland into a manufacturing site that thrived through the 1980s. In the process, it contaminated soil and groundwater in various sections of the 120-acre campus.

Contamination on the site was confirmed by the state Department of Environmental Conservation in 1978 but IBM and later Ginsberg kept the information hidden from the public until 2011, when TechCity was forced to provide details when seeking zoning changes.

The new building would be about twice the size of an existing structure that was strategically placed at the north end of the east campus in an area where IBM maps show has the most flow from a wide area underneath the campus.

Quigley said National Resources officials have declined to sign off on the new building because it is in a conspicuous location.

“It’s at the main entrance,” he said.

However, the wishes of iPark 87 representatives may not carry enough weight to stop the project because of efforts that have gone into stopping the spread of groundwater contamination. The collection system was built in 1984 and connects a series of lines to the treatment system, which was designed to handle trichloroethance, trichloroethene, tetrachlorethene, dichloroethene, dichloroethane, carbon tetrachloride, Freon, and petroleum hydrocarbons.

On July 8, 2011, the state and IBM agreed to continue the site cleanup by declaring there would be a separate management area for the varying forms of contamination, with IBM being given “unrestricted access … to install, repair, and maintain groundwater treatment equipment and also for unrestricted rights to use all common areas” to deal with the problems.