Funding for $27.5 million system remains uncertain
HOPEWELL JUNCTION – Design of a water system for the Hopewell Precision Superfund site is nearly complete.
But the long-sought remedy is taking longer than expected and will cost nearly $9 million more than originally estimated.
Nearly 13 years after the contamination of groundwater in one area of Hopewell Junction became widely apparent, Hopewell Precision remains the last Superfund site in Dutchess County without a permanent fix.
EPA officials said design of a system that would pipe clean water from a well field across the street from East Fishkill town hall is 95-percent complete. The design is being reviewed by state, county and federal agencies.
“We do anticipate all comments (from those agencies) to be adequately addressed so as to enable the design to be 100-percent complete and approved by this summer,” Lorenzo Thantu, project manager for the EPA, said in a statement.
Once the design has received all of its approvals, the EPA will need to find money to pay for construction costs. In 2008, the agency estimated construction would cost $18.9 million, a figure that was based on water sources that would have been closer than the well field across from town hall.
Last year, it lowered the estimate to $14 million.
The tab now is $27.5 million.
Thantu said last year’s estimate was “a very, very rough estimate.” It was lower than 2008, he said, partly because the EPA believed some of the components, including a storage tank, would be provided by the town.
He said the current estimate factors in all the necessary components and accounts for inflation since the 2008 estimate.
The 2008 estimate was based on three potential water sources. Each was rejected.
- The town passed on one site because it would have been too expensive to acquire.
- Hopewell Precision customers expressed concerns over water quality from another source, the pipeline that delivers treated Hudson River water from Poughkeepsie.
- And customers within a third source made it clear they would have voted against a measure required to allow the EPA to tap into their water.
Some 291 residential and 28 commercial properties lie within the Hopewell Precision site where groundwater is contaminated with trichloroethylene (TCE) and trichloroethane (TCA).
The contamination occurred when workers at Hopewell Precision Inc., a privately-owned fabricator of sheet-metal products, dumped waste solvents on the ground decades ago when the plant was located across the street from its current site at 19 Ryan Dr.
Residents first became aware of the problem in 2003. It was named a Superfund site in 2005. The EPA has paid for air and water filters in homes with unhealthy levels of the chemicals, as well as regular testing.
Hopewell Junction resident Nancy Foster, 66, lives within the site and has both water and air filters in her home.
“If it happens,” she said of the fix, “it will be a surprise to us because it has been so many years.”
Last year, the EPA and the Justice Department renewed efforts to collect some of the costs from Hopewell Precision and John B. Budd, the company’s former owner. That effort is continuing, Thantu said.
Rick Skeen, president of Hopewell Precision, said the company is continuing to negotiate with the DOJ.
“It basically comes down to what we can afford to pay,” Skeen said. “We’re a small company with 25 employees.”
Skeen said those negotiations could be resolved within the next few weeks.
Regardless of how much the responsible parties contribute, taxpayers likely will pay the majority of costs. Once the design is finalized, Hopewell Precision will be weighed against other Superfund sites that are shovel-ready.
And that is where the cost becomes a concern, since the pot of federal dollars is limited.
A year ago, Walter Mugdan, head of the EPA’s regional Superfund program, said he was cautiously optimistic the funding would be approved by the end of 2015.
Thantu said the EPA hopes “to have some certainty” about funding by the fourth quarter of the current federal fiscal year, which ends on Sept. 30.
“But,” Thantu said, “(we) cannot be certain.”
John Ferro: 845-437-4816; jferro@poughkeepsiejournal.com; Twitter: @PoJoEnviro
Design of Hopewell Precision fix nears completion
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