An important community meeting on the future of New Cassel's 170-acre hazardous waste Superfund Site will be held on Dec. 13, the New Cassel Environmental Justice Project (NCEJP) has announced.

The meeting will be hosted by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC), through NCEJP's efforts to obtain regular updates about the cleanup progress of the site, known as the New Cassel Industrial Area (NCIA). NCIA is currently home to 13 Class 2 hazardous waste sites, meaning that, according to the NYSDEC, they pose a significant threat to the public's health or environment, due to groundwater contamination threatening nearby public water wells. These sites are the subject of ongoing environmental studies and cleanups. It's also home to several brownfields, former hazardous waste sites that have already been cleaned up under the auspices of the NYSDEC. NCIA also contains more than 140 active businesses, in the midst of several residential neighborhoods.

The NCEJP, a nonprofit organization formed in the mid-1990s by community activists, works to monitor and assist in the efforts of the DEC and the State Department of Health, and to inform the public of the work being done to clean up the hazardous sites. Among the board members of the NCEJP are residents of New Cassel, which surrounds the site, and Salisbury which lies south of it. The residential neighborhoods and environment of New Cassel are directly affected by activities at the site, because of their close proximity. The neighborhoods of Salisbury are impacted because the plume of groundwater contamination emanating from the site is believed to be threatening the public water supply wells of Salisbury's Bowling Green Water District.

Mildred Little of New Cassel, NCEJP board president, encouraged members of the public to make their concern about the Superfund sites known by attending the Dec. 13 meeting. "This is a very important meeting to let the community know where we're going on this," she said, "so that they will continue this cleanup, for health, for the environment, and for our quality of life."

Little noted that residents need to show the community's presence, and that the community continues to keep a close watch on the cleanup progress, so that government officials will continue to give it attention.

"It affects the residents here," she said. "The main thing is for them to come out, and to let the officials know, and the DEC, that we are still concerned about it."

Viki DeJong, an NCEJP board member from Salisbury, echoed Little's call for community vigilance. She is hopeful that despite news that government funds for Superfund site cleanups have been depleted in New York State, funding for the New Cassel cleanup efforts will be maintained.

"It's important for the water supply, which is primarily on the Salisbury side, the Bowling Green Water District. It's important to everybody, because of the importance of stopping that plume of contamination, which emanated from the industrial area. It's very important that people, particularly those who have not attended a meeting, know exactly what's been going on," said DeJong. "And we did get wonderful cooperation from the Albany DEC and the county health department. The cooperation has been wonderful. If they continue, this really will be a landmark remediation. And I really have no reason not to believe that they'll continue. The only 'if' will be that funding will remain available."

Speaking on behalf of the board of NCEJP, DeJong added, "We have been very impressed and pleased with the progress so far. And it's important that community people know about it. Because it's very easy to complain, and people should complain. But there also has to come a time to see that things can be successful if you don't go away. And we didn't go away."

DeJong also believes that community involvement is a key part of the cleanup efforts. "Hopefully, this will be successful until its completion. It will take several years to be fully remediated," she said. "And then of course, any portion of that property that's part of the brownfields, can be reused, in many instances, for other types of construction, once it's remediated ... So there's a lot good that we see ahead."

According to Mark Lowery, a spokesperson for the NYSDEC, the Dec. 13 meeting will focus specifically on the Tishcon Site, one of the many sites in the NCIA which have been the subject of ongoing cleanup efforts. The DEC will discuss the agency's decision to de-list the Tishcon Site from the state's registry of hazardous waste sites, as a result of successful remediation activities. The remediation activities were paid for by a private party which had assumed funding responsibility for the site's cleanup. "The actual final remedy is that the site will be de-listed," Lowery said, noting that this is good news for the industrial area.

The Dec. 13 meeting will be held at the Park Avenue School, New Cassel, at 7:30 p.m. For further information on the event, one may call NCEJP at (516) 876-9526, or the NYSDEC at (631) 444-0350.