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 Introduced
by Joel Tyner: District 11 - Rhinebeck/Clinton Legislator
WHEREAS, the Poughkeepsie Journal reported last September 14th
that, "There have been 60 spills involving the gasoline additive
MTBE in Dutchess documented by the Department of Environmental
Conservation, according to the Ithaca-based environmental company
Toxics Targeting. Of those, only 15 have been 'closed' by the
DEC, leaving 45 that have not been cleaned up to state standards."
WHEREAS, Sen. Chuck Schumer released a statement last October
10th that "there are 36 MTBE spills to clean up in Dutchess
County, at an average cost of $500,000 per spill, or a combined
total of $18 million."
Chuck
Schumer
WHEREAS, "Less than 12 percent of MTBE spills cleaned to
the state's own standards...A total of 2,286 MTBE spills have
been reported to the state since 1985 and 262 have been cleaned
to the standards, according to Toxics Targeting, "according
to a front-page article by Erika Rosenberg in a February 2003
Poughkeepsie Journal. Article
WHEREAS, MTBE has been detected at twenty-seven different spill
sites in our county, according to the NYS Department of Environmental
Conservation; twenty-two of these spills have affected groundwater,
according to the DEC. Spills
WHEREAS, a front-page article in the November 2000 Hyde Park
Townsman reported how the New York State Department of Environmental
Conservation knew for many years about several gas stations contaminating
groundwater in the Greenbush section of Hyde Park without notifying
people in that neighborhood whose groundwater was jeopardized
from this.
WHEREAS, "State Department of Health officials outline a
plan to study birth outcomes and cancer rates in the [Endicott]
area to determine whether they reflect a broader public health
problem. The proposed study comes 'from our review of other studies
of health outcomes associated with exposures to the industrial
degreasing agent trichloroethylene,
and response to residents' concerns.'" Read
more...
Now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED, that the Dutchess County Legislature hereby calls on
the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation to state, without
any further delay, exactly where the MTBE monitoring wells are
in the county, exactly what the latest test results are for those
monitoring wells, exactly who has been notified in those 27 neighborhoods
about those MTBE spills, and further, to issue a monthly report
to the County Legislature with this information, and be it
RESOLVED, that the New York State Department of Health and/or
Dutchess County Department of Health conduct a complete health
assessment of the people living within a mile of those 27 MTBE
spills, to look at the rates of cancer, infant mortality, other
diseases, and possible correlation for those diseases with those
spills, similar to what's already being done in Endicott groundwater
contamination there.
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