OCKAWAMICK UPDATE: PHRASE II ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT
ccSCOOP News
There are no environmental issues at the former Ockawamick School that would interfere with the county’s planned use of the building as an office building. The site presents no significant threat to human health or to the environment and no significant liabilities.
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That was the gist of the message that Kevin McGrath, senior hydrogeologist with Earth Tech Northeast, delivered to the Columbia County Board of Supervisors on Wednesday, August 20. The setting was the supervisors’ committee room on the second floor of 401 State Street in Hudson. Seated around the table were the members of the Capital Building Search Subcommittee. In chairs arranged around the perimeter of the small room were most of the Hudson supervisors, various Hudson elected officials, and handful of people interested in the fate of a plan to move the Department of Social Services and the District Attorney’s office out of Hudson to the geographic middle of the county. David Robinson, the vacationing County Commissioner of Public Works, was patched into the meeting by speaker phone.
McGrath presented the findings of the Phase II Environmental Site Assessment conducted by Earth Tech on the former Ockawamick School on Route 217 in Claverack. Because the school was built in 1951, there was a fairly high potential for both asbestos-containing materials and lead-based paint in the building. Of the 107 building material samples analyzed, 30 contained asbestos. Of the 53 paint samples analyzed, 20 contained lead. However, both the asbestos and the lead were determined to be “easily abated in the renovation.”
Greater attention was paid in the meeting to the “historic” oil spill that occurred at the site in 1995. Fuel oil was discovered in the sump pit around the water supply system’s hydrostatic tank in the building’s boiler room. The cause was determined to be a leak in the distribution line from the tank to the boiler system. The problem was dubbed Spill #9510298 by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, and the remediation involved replacing the underground fuel oil storage tank, extracting and disposing of the contaminated soil, and developing a new potable water source. Today, a small amount of residual oil remains in a confined area beneath the building, but the oil is reported to be degrading, and it is the opinion of Earth Tech that the residual oil represents no threat to the environment or to the people who will occupy the building. Earth Tech recommends, however, that the contaminated water supply be permanently closed off so that there is no chance that it could contaminate the current potable water supply.
The Ockawamick project appears to have cleared an environmental hurdle. The next hurdle has to do with land use. Converting the Ockawamick School into a county office building will require a zoning variance from the Town of Claverack. On Tuesday, August 26, at 7 p.m. at the American Legion Hall in Philmont, the county’s plan to acquire and renovate Ockawamick School will be presented to the Claverack Town Board, along with a request for an exemption from the town’s zoning ordinance.
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