THE WORLD READS WHITE PLAINS CITIZENETREPORTER — 8,324,077 VISITS IN ONE YEAR

WPCNR MR. AND MRS. AND MS. WHITE PLAINS SURVEY. July 27,2009: Republican candidates for Common Council must be bombarding Mayor Joseph Delfino with phone calls, asking buddy can you spare $20 Grand, because Mayor Delfino is sitting on a heap of cash in his Friends of Joseph Delfino fund– over $100,000– with no place to spend it. What is more the New York State Board of Elections Law, says Board of Elections Press Officer, Bob Brehm, forbids Mr. Delfino from spending the leftover funds for his own personal expenses. Brehm told WPCNR last Thursday the Mayor Delfino may only spend the money on political activities, save it for a future run for office, or make donations to charity, or he can refund the money to the contributors. There is no statute that allows Delfino to convert the funds to personal use. And another thing, as long as the Mayor’s campaign fund is active he or his treasurer have to make reports on the expenditures every six months. So unless the Mayor plans to run for state assembly next year replacing Adam Bradley (at a considerable pay cut), or run for State Senator, replacing Suzi Oppenheimer, or run for Nita Lowey’s congressional seat — or plans a lot of political discussion committees — he stands in a position to use his campaign contributions for good. What do Mr. and Mrs. and Ms. White Plains think the Mayor should do with the money? Check some of the suggestions at the right.

 

 

WPCNR Common Council-Chronicle Examiner. By John F. Bailey. July 23, 2009: The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation  has informed  the City of White Plains it has to close, remediate  and “cap” 35 to 40 acres  of the 80-acre city dump off Gedney Way at an estimated  cost to the city of $10 Million.

 

 

 

 

The Commissioner of Public Works  Joseph Nicoletti estimated to WPCNR, that  the cost of  capping the dump with an impervious covering  (DEC-recommended)  and remediating the lingering TCE (TriChloroEthylene) contaminent the dump contains, would cost the city $8 Million to $10 Million. Added to that, he told WPCNR would be the cost of a storm water rentention system.

 

 

 

An Aerial View of the Dump in mid-2006 showing the composting operations ongoing at the time when the DEC and the city agreed the city would close the dump and clean up their composting operation and when the DEC wrote the city and noted the TCE contamination was leaking into the Mamamaroneck River. Photo by Carl Albanese.

 

 

A 2006 View of the Drain pipe leading from beneath the City Dump, believed to be the source from which the TCE contaminant is leadking into the Mamaroneck River, the body of water in the picture. Photo by Carl Albanese.

 

Nicoletti  said it was too early  to estimate the price of  the  construction of the complex storm water retention system needed to carry off and  mitigate the resulting storm water runoff off a 40 acre surface,  would cost in addition to the $10 Million cleanup.

The decision relayed to the Common Council tonight by Commissioner Nicoletti  comes after a three year analysis of the site conducted by the city with DEC oversight  at a cost of $1.2 Million. (This, WPCNR believes, is in addition to a $1 Million to upgrade the Dump Composting operation two years ago).

 

Nicoletti requested $250,000 more funding from  the council this evening to pay for creation of a Conceptual Closing Plan and a Final Closing Plan to determine how the cleanup will be executed.

 

 

 

Commissioner Nicoletti told the Common Council after the city Conceptual Closing Plan is approved by the DEC and the Final Plan submitted (anticipated by the first of the year) work would begin to close the dump in 2010. The type of surface to be installed has yet to be determined, Nicoletti told the council, but would be decided in consultation with the DEC as the Conceptual Closing Plan is developed.

 

Nicoletti said the the TCE (Tri Cloral Ethanol) pollution existing on the site dates back to prior the 1970s and lies beneath a layer of ash 15 feet below the surface, measuring about 50 feet square. He explained that the TCEs have been leaking into the Mamaroneck River and the soil of the dump for decades.

 

Speaking privately to WPCNR after the meeting, Nicoletti explained that the low levels of TCE on the site were apparently not considered a threat to public health by the DEC because the DEC at that time did not push the city to clean up the site. The issue surfaced again in the second term of the Delfino administration and came to a head three years ago when the DEC demanded the city proceed with a plan to close the dump.

 

Working  together the city and the DEC agreed on a series of new monitoring wells to measure the flow of the TCE’s into the Mamaroneck River and surrounding soils. That testing has now been completed.  The point, Mr. Nicoletti  said to WPCNR, “it’s a very low level. The DEC does not consider it a threat. It (the TCE), is not a threat. That’s why I pushed for these tests that show removal was not needed .”

 

Nicoletti said the standard applied to water was the water in the Mamroneck River had to be “drinking water standard” when it came to the levels of the pollutants and that was what was causing the problem. The levels are not drinking water standard.

 

Nicoletti told WPCNR removing the TCE is very expensive, involving digging an enormous hole and shipping the soil out to be cleaned.  (Such a process was recently conducted in Jamaica Queens ridding an industrial site  of a similar cleaning fluid toxins that were seeping into the city water supply. That  remediating was estimated at a cost of $4 Million.)

 

 

Nicoletti said the city might receive a $2 Million grant to defray some of the costs of the clean-up but that would be about it. He said municipalities are expected to pay their cost of a contaminated site clean-up.

 

Asked by Councilperson Thomas Roach how the TCE would be mitigated, Nicoletti said he preferred the use of placing iron bars into the middle of the TCE subterranean deposit,  because the TCE interacts with the iron and its toxic properties neutralize, he said. However, Nicoletti said the DEC would have to agree on that.

 

The unexpected City Dump “iceberg” on the sea of red ink the city  is now sailing is an additional burden  to be bonded for joining  the $14 Million new water tank at the reservoir (expected to be paid for by the Water fund).

 

Back Story

 

The final solution to the dump comes 7 months after the DEC had told the city it was going to have to take care of those TCE’s:

A press spokesperson from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation told WPCNR December 17, 2008, that the DEC had received completed test results of wells testing executed in spring 2008, and that the DEC team of technicians had determined that the TCE-contaminates found in the City Dump were still leaking leachate into the Mamaroneck River in a quantity that requires remediation.

Wendy Rosenbach, spokesperson of the DEC office in New Paltz, told WPCNR a final report is awaited from the city, but regardless of what that reports says, the DEC will require some form of cleanup of the contaminants, the extent of the remediation has yet to be determined. No other information was immediately available, according to Ms. Rosenbach, except that remediation will be required of the city.

 

Letter above from May 2006 — Telling city to close the City dump. Photos by Carl Albanese

WPCNR originally informed the public about the DEC negotiations with the city over the Dump in June 2006, and you can read about the history of the polluted dump that they said was not polluted at http://www.whiteplainscnr.com/article4714.html

The original story WPCNR filed covered the public display of photos of the dump by White Plains Carl Albanese, and was based on documents acquired from the Department of Environmental Conservation in New Paltz, by the former editor of White Plains Online, Don Hughes, also a White Plains City resident.

 

A $10 MILLION MIGRAINE THE CITY DOES NOT NEED

 

The city is also facing  a potential for a 3% to 4% binding arbitration settlement for its fire fighters union by January.  (Approval of the union counsel by the Common Council could not be passed tonight because of the absence of Councilperson Milagros Lecouna.)  The union settlement will set the precedent for the three other unions: police, teamsters, the Civil Service Employees Union.  Additionally the Red Sea is getting rougher as certiorari refunds continue to lower the city assessment role.

 

In other action, Thursday night…

 

$225,000 to WPHA for HUD “Green Tech” Grant.

 

The council indicated willingness to spend the $225,000 of the last $266,729 remaining in the developer-to put up a 25% “match” for the White Plains Housing Authority apply for a HUD grant of $1,780,000 to be used, if HUD approves the WPHA application, for installation of green technologies and money-saving improvements to Schuyler-DeKalb, and Lake Street WPHA buildings in the city. Mack Carter, the WPHA Executive Director, said the $225,000 would only be used if the grant was received. It apparently gives the city 94 points on its application of 110 points in the scoring of their grant application. The grant most likely would not be forthcoming until 2010. The second reading of the $225,000 transfer will be at the Common Council meeting of August 3, since Ms. Lecouna was not present, it could not be passed (requiring a majority at first reading).

 

Shinn-Yo-En to Expand Temple off North Street.

 

 

The temple Shinn-Yo-En, with visiting executives from San Francisco and Japan present, presented a plan to expand their building on North Street with a 980 sq. foot extension (shown at bottom left being added to the present temple, pic above left. The perspective from overhead is shown in the overhead view on the right. The Council does not have to approve the expansion, it being a religious organization. The addition will be used for a social area only with not classroom conversion options.

 

Rental Rates down in the downtown — Condos, Rentals outside downtown considered to develop affordable housing inventory.

 

Commissioner of Planning Susan Habel presented a survey showing how rental rates for studios, one bedroom and two bedroom had declined to basically be within reach of 100% of median income affordable housing clients.

 

Habel noted that developer Louis Cappelli had failed to provide the 13 affordable housing units in the downtown, based on the last agreement where Cappelli could meet his obligation if he made rental arrangements with other buildings in the downtown. It was pointed out that Bank Street Commons, One City Place,the Gramercy and AvalonBay had all refused to make units available to the Cappelli organization to fill the 13-unit gap in affordable housing units Cappelli owes the city.

 

Habel said the city needed to develop other buildings (including condominiums)  willing to lease out rentals for use by affordable housing clients, if they had units that were not filled. At the suggestion of Rita Malmud and Councilman Benjamin Boykin, Ms. Habel agreed that the city, given the decline in rentals in the downtown should concentrate on seeking units for clients earning 50% of median income ($80,000)

 

Hotel Tax Draft Issued

 

Corporation Counsel Edward Dunphy handed out drafts of the new City Hotel Tax legislation for Council comment. The city is attempting to get the 3% hotel occupancy tax (which the city will collect, Dunphy said) passed by the second quarter of the year (beginning October 1). A hearing is going to be scheduled for the September Council meeting.  Dunphy and the city financial departments are racing to decide the city departmental procedures on how the tax will be collected and to define the tax for the city hoteliers.

 

Cert Session

 

The Council wrapped up the evening with the obligatory Executive Session to approve a serious of certiorari settlements (refunds to property owners for past years over taxation).