Riverkeeper activists pursue Hudson River polluters

In addition to testing the region’s swimming water quality, Hudson Riverkeeper activists have been pursuing a Catskill polluter allowing acid runoff from a landfill on the Lehigh Cement plant property, and violations at a West Park construction site where workers carved away much of the Hudson riverbank. The Lehigh acid runoff was discovered after Riverkeeper helicopter overflights in 2006 and 2007 showed ominous-looking pools weren’t supposed to be there. Further investigation found the yellowish pools to contain fluid that had leeched out of the landfill – fluid with an acid level equivalent to household bleach, according to Joshua Verleun, an investigator and staff attorney with Riverkeeper.

On July 10, Riverkeeper filed an intent to sue on the Lehigh pools under the Clean Water Act, but Verleun said he has yet to hear of the result. The Environmental Protection Agency or another agency may take over the lawsuit that originated with Riverkeeper, or Riverkeeper lawyers may wind up pursuing it themselves, Verleun said.

The acid is damaging a bordering wetland, and is almost certainly spilling over into the Hudson, Verleun said.

Neither Lehigh Cement officials nor the Pennsylvania-based company’s attorney returned repeated calls for comment.

 

In the West Park case, Lipscomb found, during a Riverkeeper patrol several weeks ago, that much of the river bank there had been carved away to create a drive-down river access point for a home. Riverkeeper’s Bryan Hurlbutt, a legal intern from Columbia Law School, managed to get the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to issue a notice of violation against the homeowner, for failing to get the right permits, and for failing to shore up the site against erosion.

The “notice” was issued July 31, but as of Aug. 7, Lipscomb and Hurlbutt could see no evidence that any anti-erosion controls had been put in place. This, after the DEC warned the homeowner, Al Cutungo of 76 Floyd Ackert Road, that he is “subject to penalties of up to $37,500 per day” for each of the two violations.

Cutungo did not respond to repeated calls requesting comment to the violation notice.

Lipscomb is wary the DEC’s violation notice may simply be “lip service,” and not part of a serious effort to protect the river. “There’s talk of this being a national heritage river and the quadracentennial (celebration of the river’s discovery) and every other kind of talk. But when it comes down to trying to keep a lot of sediment from washing into what is sturgeon spawning ground, which is a recognized senstivive habitat, none of the agencies seem to be willing to act.”

By Blaise Schweitzer

Daily Freeman