WOODSTOCK, N.Y. — The Town Board has scheduled a Tuesday, Nov. 28, meeting to discuss lingering concerns over the cleanup of contaminated dirt at 10 Church Road in the hamlet of Shady.
The session is scheduled for 7 p.m. in the Mescal Hornbeck Community Center at 56 Rock City Road.
“People in Shady want to be able to come in and speak out,” Councilwoman Laura Ricci said. “It’s probably likely to be a one-way communication. We’ll see if we have any answers.”
Residents have been upset about the site since learning that Saugerties contractor Joseph Karolys had deposited contaminated material on it in 2019 and 2020 through an arrangement with property owners Vincent and Gina Conigliaro.
In January 2022, Karolys and Gina Coligniaro entered guilty pleas and were fined $1,500 after being charged with 200 counts of violating town solid waste disposal laws. No charges were pressed for environmental contamination, even though the material was found to be from Karolys’ Saugerties businesses, where state Department of Environmental Conservation investigators in 2019 had raided three sites twice and issued a stop work order once.
A lawsuit has been filed against Woodstock officials by Frank and Pam Eighmey, neighbors of the 10 Church Road property, with the court asked to declare actions by town officials to have been an abuse of discretion. The case was filed on June 22 and contends that 2,800 cubic yards of contaminated fill was deposited on the property and allowed to remain through an arrangement facilitated by town Supervisor Bill McKenna.
McKenna has said, however, that all feasible action has been taken to remove construction debris at 10 Church Road. He added that the remaining dirt has been cleared by the state Department of Environmental Conservation, according to a letter from department Regional Director Kelly Turturro.
“Based on DEC staff observations … as well as their review of the sampling results summary, DEC does not have any evidence that hazardous waste is present at the site or that any pollutant is present at a level considered hazardous to the environment,” she wrote.
Critics contend that the state letter is contradicted by findings at the Saugerties site. They said additional reviews have been conducted by a qualified hydrologist to support the concerns. They said the dirt is over the aquifer used by the town for its municipal water supply and have provided reports on how the chemical could leach into the groundwater over time.
“Having reviewed the documents in the case, and specifically the response of the town, I am shocked that the town is choosing to go out of its way to revictimize the Eighmey family by putting forward untruths and half-truths in order to fight their appeals for the town to enforce the laws the town itself has on the books,” former town Environmental Commission Chairwoman Alex Bolotow wrote in a Nov. 19 email
State and Ulster County officials have reported that dirt found at the three Saugerties sites had lead and zinc levels that exceeded “unrestricted standards, while mercury exceeded those standards at the state route 212 site and the Fel Qui Road landfill operated by Karolys.
The results also found that “residential standards were exceeded for four types of benzo, chrysene and indeno at the Route 212 site, while the presence of those chemicals, as well as dibenz, exceeded limits at Karolys’ Goat Hill Road property.