For several days, unusual-looking trucks parked on Overlook Drive in Baxter Estates. The trucks were used to drill 128-foot holes into the street that would become wells to test the ground water. After a hole was drilled PVC pipe was put into it. A week later men returned to pump out the gathered water and discarded it as it is considered run-off. Then the men returned to pump out the water considered ground water, which they will test for possible contamination.

Several years ago the owners of Munsey Park Cleaners, then located across from the Post Office where Wachovia Bank now stands, contaminated the ground water with chemicals. The State DEC is now trying to determine the extent of the ground water contamination; how far the plume has traveled.

Overlook Drive is the farthest the DEC has drilled from the original contaminated site. Herbert Place is another of over a dozen test well locations. Vivek Nattanmai, the environmental engineer in charge for the DEC, said they would also be taking air samples in buildings in the near future. "We plan on doing the indoor air sampling between Dec. 2008 and Feb. 2009. Based on the results from the groundwater sampling to be conducted during the middle of Sept. 08, we will determine the sampling area and the properties located in that area," he said. What the DEC will be looking for is soil vapor intrusion, the process by which volatile chemicals move from a subsurface source into the indoor air of overlying buildings. So the lowest floors will be tested.