Law requires buffer from pollution sources
Dutchess County legislators on Sept. 9 unanimously approved a law banning new businesses using chemicals and oils from being closer than a quarter-mile to public water wells, aquifers and state-designated wetlands.
Car washes, dry cleaners, gas pumps and underground storage tanks holding chemicals and oil are prohibited from operating closer than 1,500 feet to the covered water sources. The law, which takes effect Oct. 15, also places a 500-foot limit on businesses producing chemicals, junkyards and places storing road salt.
Existing operations and dry cleaners that discharge wastewater to a municipal treatment system are exempt from the requirements, which will be enforced by the county Department of Health. The department can waive the restrictions at the request of public-water suppliers that need to locate closer to a covered business.
Beacon gets its water from three groundwater wells and three reservoirs — Cargill, Mount Beacon and Melzingah — which together last year supplied an average of 2.1 million gallons a day, according to the city’s 2023 water-quality report. The proximity of the wells, which are fed by groundwater, to commercial and industrial businesses that discharge wastewater, “and residential land use and related activities,” makes them vulnerable, according to the report.
John Metzger (R-East Fishkill), who helped draft the law, said the county’s requirements preempt local laws unless they mandate even stronger limits. He said the “bold” law would have its critics “but, at the end of the day, we are going to be protecting the drinking water.”
Yvette Valdes Smith, who represents parts of Beacon and Fishkill on the Legislature and is minority leader for its Democrats, said she was happy with the legislation.
But Lisa Kaul, a Democrat who represents part of the Town of Poughkeepsie and voted for the restrictions, raised concerns that they may have unintended consequences, such as concentrating the covered businesses and their sources of pollution in one area and affecting where developers locate housing projects. “It’s imperative that we fully understand these changes to land-use patterns,” she said.
Metzger cited two areas of East Fishkill that had to undergo environmental cleanups after contamination from businesses. A sheet-metal manufacturer improperly disposed of chemicals that contaminated wells used by some 300 homes that had to be connected to a new water supply, and an IBM contractor disposed of solvents that contaminated the wells of 140 homes.
There have been other problems. In Hyde Park, the septic and sewage systems of a car wash and laundromat, dry cleaner and middle school polluted the water supply of an apartment complex, which had to be connected to the municipal water system. The site was designated a Superfund site by the Environmental Protection Agency from 1986 until last year.
Wells also have been tainted by polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), a class of chemicals used in nonstick and oil- and water-resistant coatings and foams used to contain fires involving aviation fuel. Some PFAS contaminated a well at Hudson Valley Regional Airport in Wappingers Falls, triggering a lawsuit by Dutchess County against their manufacturers. The same class of chemicals were found in the system supplying water to the middle and high schools in Dover.
The Dutchess County Fire Training Center in Hyde Park is on the state Superfund list and undergoing an investigation after PFAS contamination was found in its groundwater, soil and the Fall Kill, which runs along the east side of the property.
