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WPCNR WHITE PLAINS LAW JOURNAL. By John F. Bailey August 22, 2017:
City of White Plains Corporation Counsel John Callahan confirmed to WPCNR Monday evening that the White Plains Housing Authority, owner of the Winbrook residential complex, located in a quadrangle between South Lexington Avenue,Fisher Avenue, Fisher Court, Dr. Martin Luther King Boulevard and East Post Road is suing BP Products North America in a damage complaint filed August 18, last Friday in U.S. Federal Court in White Plains.
In a written statement, Callahan wrote:
“This was an action instituted by the Housing Authority. This City is not a party to the action. I would have to direct you to the Housing Authority for any information on this matter.”
In the official court papers filing the complaint examined by WPCNR, Case 7:17-cv-06250-UA, The Housing Authority plaintiff seeks “declaratory relief, injuntive relief, damages,declaratory relief and attorneys’ fees and costs for Defendent BP Products’ contamination of Plaintiff’s (Housing Authority) property located at 33 Fisher Court, White Plains.N.Y.”
The contamination was first discovered three years ago in September 2014 in connection with a remediation of a separate groundwater plume by Tyree Environmental Corporation (a consultant to the Getty Properties Corporation), on property West of the BP Station.
In the course of this remediation by Tyree, two monitoring wells were installed; MW-110 and MW-0111. The first samplings taken on or about September 19,2014 showed soil samples including 280 ppb benzene and 79,000 ppb 1,2,4-Trimethlbenzene exceeding NYS Department of Environmental Conservation soil cleanup levels.
In April 2015, First Environment, the Housing Authority’s Environmental Consultant drilled six more monitoring wells on portions of the Housing Authority adjacent the BP Station
Results from extensive monitoring were reported in December, 2016 to the DEC which issued a Petroleum Spill Number for the BP Station at 34 East Post Road, “Spill number 16-8924” which reported according to the court papers on page 8, “petroleum contamination affecting both soil and groundwater, and significant soil and groundwater contaminiation off-site.”
The suit alleges “the presence of lead in the soil under the BP Station and in the groundwater under WPHA’s adjacent property confirms that lead was discharged into the environment from the BP Station during the period it was owned or operated by Defendent BP products.”
Contaminants from the BP Station have allegedly leaked into the soil surrounding Building 33 to the right in the Winbrook complex, right, and possibly the playground foreground
HydroEnvironmental Solutions, the environmental consultant for the current owner of the BP Station in January 2017, performed a subsurface intestigation at the BP Station, and made seven test borings. HES reported that concentrations of petroleum-related contamination at concentrations exceeding the respective NYSDEC soil cleanup levels, including ethylbenzene; isopropylbenzene; 1,2,4-Trimethylbenzene, 1,3,5- Trimethylbenzene and zylene. Lead in soil was detected in three soil borings under the BP Station property.
The HES report “reflected its belief that the petroleum-related impacts at the BP station are not recent in nature.”
The Housing Authority complaint announces “On information and belief Defendent BP Products has known or should have known of the potential migration from the BP Station of solid and hazardous waste beginning as faer back as during the period 1977- to 1979 and has been on actual notice since 2015 when it received from the RCRA (Resource Conservation and Recovery Act) endangerment notice of migration onto WPHA’ property.
The suit notes: “the presence of soil contamination and groundwater contamination from from the BP Station on the WPHA’s property will materially interfere with and/or increase the cost and complexity of the financing for construction of this project in the vicinity of Building 33, and may adversely affect the financing for construction of other buildings and amenities to be constructed on the WPHA’s property.
No court has been set yet.