Greece, N.Y. (WHAM) — A proposed senior living development on Island Cottage Road is still moving forward, but neighbors continue to voice concerns.
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All kinds of chemicals have been dumped at the nearby World War II-era Odenbach manufacturing site for decades, and those contaminants are still in the ground, according to Casey and Brendan Bulson.
“We took surface water samples. I didn’t expect to get anything back,” Casey said. “I had them test for some of the main chemicals that were found over at Odenbach.”
Working with ALS Environmental in Henrietta, they did get something back in one of the samples: TCE, or trichloroethylene.
“It was at 2 micrograms per liter, which is four times the reporting limit in California and directly at the New York reporting limit,” said Casey.
Brendan said TCE is a harmful chemical and can lead to a number of ailments.
“First and foremost, of course, the big C cancer, but then it really affects the developing bodies of young children,” said Brendan.
Only around 500 feet from their property and close to the Island Cottage development, Brendan is calling for the Department of Environmental Conservation to install wells for testing.
Ryan Murphy is calling on the town to halt the Island Cottage project. There’s also another area of concern.
“To ensure the safety of not only the residents that are here now, the students, given how close we are to Arcadia,” he said.
The school is about 1,175 feet away. Concerned Greece Board of Education members, like Megan Ferra, actually joined in on the hike Wednesday.
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Jeff McCann, running for town supervisor, said it was settled 20 years ago what all the land was supposed to be.
“This property was purchased with the intent that it would be maintained as open space,” said McCann.
He added those like the Bulsons, now buckled down with lawyer fees and funding the costs of the environmental sampling, should not be doing this on their own.
“It’s very troubling that they found this contamination (and) they really didn’t have partners in government helping them,” McCann said.
The town declined to comment on the test results because they were done on state land. The state Department of Environmental Conservation hasn’t responded to a request for comment.