Hurley deputy supervisor Peter Humphries said he felt vindicated by state designation last week of the former town landfill as a Superfund site. He has been waiting for that designation for the past four years, he said.
“This now will give us funding to repair this poorly built catastrophe that they’ve been trying to hide for 30 years,” Humphries said. The leachate collection system in use has been inadequate and has suffered from a lack of maintenance.
The Superfund designation, which is preliminary, gives the town access to more than a million dollars for remediation under the state’s prioritization of solid-waste sites for funding.
In an October 25 announcement, the state Department of Environmental Conservation said perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) were detected in on-site groundwater monitoring wells, in a leachate collection tank, in surface water and sediment samples adjacent to the site, and in private drinking water wells downhill from the site.
“Additional investigation is needed to define the nature and extent of site-related contamination; to evaluate associated human exposure pathways; and to determine the appropriate actions to prevent and mitigate potential exposures,” the DEC notice said. “If you own property adjacent to this site and are renting or leasing your property to someone else, please share this information with them.”
Working with a town-contracted engineering firm, Humphries said he repaired part of the leachate collection system. It is now working as well as it can. Groundwater was being pumped from a lower basin into collection tanks and diluting it. A pipe broke, causing it to drain back out.
“The first month I repaired this, it stopped us from recycling the water back out of the system, and into the ground, where it could work itself downstream,” Humphries said.
Improperly wired pumps that were constantly running caused tanks to overflow. Pumps were installed too low, causing the unnecessary pumping of water instead of leachate, explained Humphries.
“I was so happy when I heard this,” he said of the Superfund designation. “We are now able to get help to repair and rebuild the system properly.”
Humphries said the entire system may need to be rebuilt.
Over this spring and summer, the town, working with its engineer, Crawford & Associates, repaired a broken pipe, raised the pumps so they weren’t pumping water, and installed a new monitoring system that alerts town officials via text message when the holding tanks are full. A contractor is also alerted to pump out the tanks.
According to town supervisor Melinda McKnight, the contamination dates back to the operation of the landfill from the 1960s to mid-1990s, but the state didn’t test for PFOS until 2018.
Hurley pre-election budget
Recent revisions to Hurley’s proposed budget will increase highway spending and but not change the tax levy. Rather than raising taxes, the town board will offset the levy with a 2023 surplus.
The budget originally presented October 2 called for a 6.7 percent decrease in highway spending and a 15.9 percent drop in general-fund spending, resulting in a tax decrease of 1.7 percent.
The town board was peppered with questions and accusations during an October 24 public hearing on the budget.
“This is what I would call a pretty politically motivated budget, and very convenient that it’s being released a couple of weeks before, and it’s showing all these cuts, or supposed cuts in property taxes, which are really funded by $200,000 in additional state aid,” charged resident Tim Kelly. “How can we know what we’re getting next year for state aid? Basically, we’re just going to obfuscate the public. So we’re not going to print any hard copies of the actual budget because it’s going to change after the election. This is just a convenient hearing to push forward the McKnight administration’s political agenda.”
Tracy Kellogg, Republican candidate for town clerk, accused town supervisor Melinda McKnight of exaggerating town government income. She also chastised her for a lack of copies of the budget.
General fund spending is $1,846,161, down $271,101, or 12.8 percent from $2,117,262 for 2023. The general-fund levy is unchanged at $828,161.
The highway budget is $1,969,612, up $116,033 or 6.3 percent from $1,853,579 in 2023. The highway levy is unchanged at $1,519,100.
McKnight said the budget was available online. “It’s been posted for weeks,” she said.
McKnight addressed the revenue accusations.
“So I heard concerns about potentially over-projecting revenue,” she said. “The fact is that the sales-tax revenue number that’s in the budget was supplied by Ulster County. I took the number that was projected at three percent, leaving out the one percent extra that the town will receive, so that there will likely be a excess revenue in that line.”
She said she had initially budgeted sales-tax revenues level with this year. “The county comptroller felt pretty strongly that we will hit the revenue projection for sales tax, which is $230,000. She’s even comfortable we’ll hit the $300,000 this year.”
McKnight added the town has already exceeded its mortgage-transfer-tax projections for the year of $110,000. “We’ve received $116,000 so far,” she said. “It is typical that we will get another mortgage transfer tax payment. I kept it flat at 110. For next year, I felt pretty confident about that.”
The Bank of Greene County has told the town the interest rate of 2.25 percent on $6.3 million in the savings account will result in $140,000 in annual interest revenue. “So far this year, we have $65,000 in interest,” McKnight said.
Join the family! 
