More than two decades after groundwater contamination was discovered around a Pelham dry cleaning business, the state Department of Environmental Conservation Superfund program is about to begin the cleanup.
The former Crystal Cleaners at 113 Wolfs Lane is classified as an inactive hazardous waste disposal site, according to the DEC’s announcement, and poses “a significant threat to public health.”
The contaminated site is near restaurants and other businesses in downtown Pelham, a block away from the Metro-North train station.
Dry cleaners have operated from the one-story building, and from nearby addresses, since at least 1947, according to corporation records and DEC reports. It currently operates as Joy Cleaners.
The first phase of the cleanup will focus behind the dry cleaning building, on the village’s public works yard.
The second phase will focus on a groundwater plume that has migrated from the dry cleaning business to Manning Circle, a residential area with several houses and an apartment building.
Notwithstanding the site’s Superfund status, DEC does not consider the contamination a direct health threat. Contact with the soil is unlikely, because it is covered by the dry cleaning building and pavement, according to a 2016 site characterization report.
People are not exposed to contaminated water because the area is served by a public water system.
There is potential for soil vapor intrusion, the report notes, as volatile organic compounds in the groundwater move into the soil and into the air inside buildings.
DEC recommended that depressurization systems be installed at four nearby buildings. Two accepted and two declined.
DEC announced that the first phase of remediation will begin this fall. Contractors hired by the agency will excavate about 215 cubic yards of soil in the village’s public works yard, to a depth of 8 feet, and replace it with clean backfill. The groundwater will be injected with substances that DEC says will break down contamination through natural biological processes.
The work is expected to take about six weeks and cost $600,000.
The agency said it is still working on designs for the second phase, for treating the groundwater under Manning Circle.
The dry cleaning problem was discovered around 1997, according to a site characterization report, when contamination was discovered at 101 Wolfs Lane and several underground storage tanks were removed. Crystal Cleaners was added to the state’s registry of hazardous sites in 2000.
Past and present property owners and business operators may be held liable for the contamination, according to a 2016 remedial investigation fact sheet.
DEC included Crystal Cleaners of Pelham Corp., A&M Crystal Cleaners & Launderer Inc., Myung H. Lee, the Estate of Michael Covino, and 113 Wolf’s Lane A&M Corp.
The village tax roll lists M. & O. Lee Realty Corp. as the property owner. Joy Cleaners Westchester was registered as the business at 113 Wolfs Lane in 2020.
If “potentially responsible parties” do not agree to take responsibility, the agency can take action under the Superfund program, according to the 2016 fact sheet.
Then they are “subject to legal action by the state for recovery of all … costs the state has incurred.”
