NARROWSBURG, NY — Congress has joined the group of agencies and officials who have not been able to grapple away the results of the New York State Department of Health (DOH) tests on private drinking water wells near the Town of Highland’s Barnes Landfill.

The hillside landfill property is abandoned and its leachate collection system has been intermittently leaking, perhaps for years, down toward Beaver Brook and the Delaware River. New York State is said to have funding for mitigation of problems at similar landfills, but only when private water wells are impacted. DOH test results of private wells near the landfill have never been made public.

Fulfilling a pledge to investigate Upper Delaware Council (UDC) concerns, U.S. Rep. John Faso inquired about the situation in a November 26 letter to DOH Commissioner Howard Zucker, M.D. Faso copied UDC, which released it last week.

In part Faso wrote, “As you are aware, stakeholders in the region including the Town of Highland, the Upper Delaware Council (UDC), the National Park Service and the Delaware River Basin Commission have all expressed concerns regarding reports that the leachate containment system for the Barnes Landfill may periodically overflow, resulting in runoff into the surrounding groundwater and potentially into the Beaver Brook and Delaware River…

“On June 13, 2018, a representative of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) informed UDC that in September 2017, the New York State Department of Health took samples of four onsite monitoring wells as well as some surrounding residential drinking water wells.”

According to data then provided by (DEC) Regional Materials Management Engineer, James J. Lansing Jr., those test well samplings revealed a level of perfluorooctanoic acid, a toxic, corrosive and suspected carcinogenic substance in excess of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) lifetime health advisory guidelines. The samples also showed six metals—aluminum, iron, lead, magnesium, manganese and sodium—and two chemicals, benzene, a known carcinogen, and Chlorobenzene, which was formerly a component of DDT, all in excess of DEC water quality standards.

Testing results of residential wells “may be requested from the NYS Department of Health,” Lansing wrote. He did not then say whether DEC results were reported to residential well owners, and he could provide only partial and anecdotal evidence of DEC testing and inspections since the landfill’s 1992 closure.

 “No results have yet been delivered since the UDC’s letter petitioning for the records on August 21, 2018,” Faso wrote. “Despite these requests and public reports on this matter, NYSDOH’s course of action to address these concerns remains unclear.

“The environmental and economic importance of the Delaware River cannot be overstated. NYSDOH must provide stakeholders and the public at large a better understanding of any testing it has conducted in the past and provide a detailed plan for the additional testing it will undertake to ensure that we can find resolution to these issues and concerns with the Barnes Landfill,” Faso concluded.

Faso has not reported a response, and there is no record of any DOH response to any request made to the state agency regarding these test results.

In other business, the council directed the Project Review Committee at its December 18 meeting to discuss the tabled letter to the Town of Delaware regarding a substantial conformance recommendation for an amendment to the solar subsection of its Renewable Energy Systems ordinance. After researching whether or not the UDC/NPS ever approved that ordinance, in light of the UDC/NPS Position Paper on Renewable Energies having not been fully implemented, the council agreed that executive director Laurie Ramie and chairman Aaron Robinson should “work on a multi-pronged strategy to secure operational funding from New York State and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania based on the River Management Plan cost-sharing scenario.” The council also released the list of candidates for January’s election of new officers, including, for chairperson, Harold G. Roeder, Jr. (Town of Delaware); vice-chairperson, Jeff Dexter (Damascus Township); and secretary-treasurer, Al Henry (Berlin Township).