Complex sued by state over sewage
CLIFTONPARK, N.Y. » The office of the state Attorney General has filed a lawsuit against an apartment owner claiming the complex’s septic system is discharging sewage into nearby lands, a claim the owner’s attorney disputes.
The legal filing was made in Saratoga County State Supreme Court Jan. 17 against Green Oak Blue Barns Apartments, 10-21 Ashdown Road, Clifton Park and its owner William Eichengrun. The filing was made on behalf of the New York State Department of Conservation. There are 30 apartments in five buildings in the complex.
In the filing, New York State Assistant Attorney General James C. Woods claims the waste water treatment system at the complex has failed and is illegally discharging sewage into state waters.
The lawsuit alleges the sewage is going into the waters through adjacent wetlands, ground water and an unnamed stream. It also claims that the owner does not have the required State Pollution Discharge Elimination System (SPDES) permit.
This alleged violation of the state’s water pollution control laws has continued for a number of years, the filing said, despite the state’s efforts to correct the situation through a DEC administrative consent order.
The lawsuit said Eichengrun knew about the septic system’s failure, did not try to repair it, nor did he obtain the SPEDES permit.
“Plaintiff,” the lawsuit states, “is protecting the public health, welfare and safety”.
According to the filing, DEC first received a complaint about the sewage release on June 21, 2011, four months after Eichengrun bought the apartments. After two more inspections DEC claims that staff observed sewage discharge running off the complex’s lands onto adjacent property.
Without evidence that the SPEDES permit had been transferred from the previous owner to Eichengrun, the owner was cited for the first time by DEC.
Between June 23, 2011 and April 23, 2013 DEC claims it made four more inspections of the site, saw continued sewage runoff, and no signs of repair work. The sewage, the lawsuit alleges, continues to date.
The legal filings said DEC is entitled to civil penalties up to $37,500 per day. The state agency wants a judgment against the owner assessing penalties for violation of the state regulations up to $37,500 per day, that prevents the owner from using using the septic systemand demands the treatment system conform to all regulations of the SPEDES permit.
Eichengrun’s attorney, Kevin Young of Young Sommer LLC disputes all the claims in the DEC lawsuit and is waiting for his day in court. Hewants a chance to prove that his client tried to comply with DEC’s requests but the agency was unyielding in demanding a large fine be paid first.
In a phone interview Young described the problem with
the septic system and said it is not raw sewage being discharged but water. He added that Eichengrun tried to work out a way to comply with DEC’s request but the agency demanded he pay $270,000 first before they would allow him to make the repairs.
“This is a tiny matter,” Young said. “It’s an apartment complex that was built and permitted by all the standards. My client buys it in February 2011 and in June he’s told there’s a breakout at the septic system and he has to get an engineer.”
A septic system, Young said, has a septic tank and an overflow pipe that distributes the water into the sand or gravel where
it moves through both to be cleaned. A bio mat has formed over time in the leech field where the water was being distributed and because it can’t get through that it is now coming back to the surface. That’s the breakout DEC is talking about, Young said.
“My client has been ready and willing to fix this problem but DEC wouldn’t let him do that unless he agreed to pay a $270,000
fine,” Young said. “They delayed him from fixing it for four years by that demand.”
Young said DEC thought if the agency delayed Eichengrun from fixing it he would have to pay whatever they demanded.
“He refused to pay the penalty, they’ve refused to drop the demand and now they’ve sued us,” Young said. “To us, it’s ridiculous. It’s not a big issue. The water is not going into a stream.
Nobody’s being injured. Nobody’s drinking water is being contaminated. The water just runs along the ground until it seeps in. This is an easy fix. We want to fix it and they want to litigate the fine.”
Young said his client would have made the repair but DEC officials said there would be no fix until the fine was paid.
“They blackmailed us,” Young said.
When he appears before the judge Young said he will use the correspondence that went back and forth between DEC and his client to prove his case.
“It’ll show that he’s been ready, willing and able to fix this and that DEC has refused to allow him to do so for four years thinking if they refused to allow him to fix it they’d get the money they wanted in the penalty,” Young said.