Stormwater settlement to cost Yonkers demolition contractor $60,000

A Yonkers demolition contractor has agreed to pay $60,000 to Riverkeeper Inc. and to discharge cleaner stormwater into the Saw Mill River, to settle a federal Clean Water Act lawsuit.

Capital Industries Corp. and CEO George McGuire signed off on a consent decree with Riverkeeper on Oct. 3, and U.S. District Judge Cathy Seibel endorsed the deal on Nov. 21.

Capital operates a maintenance and storage yard at Saw Mill River Road and Nepperhan Avenue, in an industrial area along the river in northwest Yonkers.

Riverkeeper, an Ossining nonprofit organization that advocates for environmental protections in the Hudson River watershed, alleged last year that Capital was violating federal and state environmental regulations and allowing polluted stormwater to drain into the river.

McGuire and Capital neither conceded nor admitted wrongdoing, according to the decree, but consented to the deal to avoid costly litigation.

Capital will connect a trench drain to two dry wells and two bioswales designed to filter debris and pollution, the decree states. It will train employees on proper clean-up techniques and install engineering controls to assure that stormwater is managed correctly.

The business will monitor, photograph and sample stormwater discharges four times a year for three years, and report its findings to Riverkeeper. It will allow Riverkeeper to inspect the property once a year.

Capital agreed to pay Riverkeeper $50,000 for attorneys’ fees, the cost of its investigation and the cost of monitoring the pollution prevention plan.

It will pay $10,000 to the Center for the Urban River at Beczak, an environmental education and research program affiliated with Sarah Lawrence College and based near the Saw Mill River outfall on the Hudson.

The consent decree is similar to a deal approved this past August in U.S. District Court, White Plains, with three businesses that operated next to the Capital site.

Gentile Construction and All About Recycling Inc., run by Joseph Gentile Jr., agreed to pay Riverkeeper $31,000. All County Mobile Concrete and president John Bernal Jr. agreed to pay $12,500.

The Gentile companies had claimed that polluted stormwater was emanating from Capital Industries.

All County Mobile Concrete ceased operating at the Yonkers site and moved to Mount Vernon.