‘Little Thunder Brook’
Town names waterway in advance of EPA cleanup
NASSAU, N.Y. >> The Nassau Town Board recently unanimously and officially designated a brook, the subject of millions of dollars in Loeffel Superfund Site cleanup efforts, as “Little Thunder Brook.”
“This is a new chapter in the healing of our community from the toxic contamination of the Dewey Loeffel Toxic Landfill,” Nassau Supervisor David Fleming said in a press release. “We are a community rich in environmental resources and we value these natural features. Providing a name to a beautiful brook and recognizing its importance is a necessary step in making it clear to polluters and the agencies involved in this Superfund site cleanup that our resources and our community matters.”
Officials said millions of dollars have already been spent and several more are expected to be spent in settlements to clean-up the Loeffel Superfund Site waterway which was given the name of T-11A by the state of New York.
Little Thunder Brook is a tributary which is part of the Hudson River Watershed.
“The health of the Hudson depends on the health of its tributaries. Even the smallest streams matter,” Water Quality Program Director for Riverkeeper, Dan Shapley, said in the release. “Naming a stream is a simple and powerful act. Once we’ve ennobled a stream with a name, it’s harder to neglect and pollute it. And I have to add, Little Thunder Brook is an awesome name.”
Officials said the Town’s naming stems from the prominent role Nassau played in the 1840s Anti- Rent War. Nassau resident Frank Abbott was a distinguished leader of the Anti-Rent War which helped reform property rights and instigated political upheaval that brought down a governor of New York. Abbott’s battle name was revered as “Lit- tle Thunder.”
Fleming stated, “Frank Abbott helped to bring down politicians that ignored the rights of rural residents. In this fight for our collective future, it is fitting that we honor Abbott’s legacy with the healing represented by the work about to start on Little Thunder Brook.”
“The residents of Nassau have been fighting for years to force the state and federal cleanup of the Loeffel Superfund Site and to hold the polluters accountable. Their work, led by Supervisor Dave Fleming, is critical to the health of the entire Capital Region. Their efforts at the same time to turn the page and express the value of their water resources by honoring their history should be commended,” Assemblyman Jake Ashby added in the release.
For years, Nassau officials said they have called for a halt to potentially unsafe discharges from this toxic site which has twice the contamination of Love Canal.
Between 1952 and 1968, an estimated 46,000 tons of toxic industrial waste were dumped at the site. EPA has already outlined that these wastes included industrial solvents, waste oil, PCBs, scrap materials, sludge and solids.
Since 1980 until the site was added to the federal Superfund list in 2011, numerous investigations and cleanup actions were performed at the site by the polluters and the NewYork State Department of Environmental Conservation.
Officials said the EPA is supervising plans to once again at-
tempt to completely remediate a tributary to the Valatie Kill labeled by agencies as T-11A. This brook, Little Thunder Brook, has been dramatically impacted with contamination from the Dewey Loeffel Toxic Landfill. This stream was previously “remediated” by NYSDECmore than 15 years ago at a cost in the millions of dollars.
The Valatie Kill is a Hudson River tributary.
The small stream is a vital habitat for small fish and the Valatie Kill. Contamination from this tributary is a source of ongoing contamination to the Valatie Kill and related waters. Current contamination in the stream after the first remediation, in some areas, is 7,500 times the acceptable limits for PCB contamination.