Contaminated Whitestone soil came from Brooklyn

From the Times Ledger:

Months after a state agency fined two companies working on a brownfield site in Whitestone for importing unauthorized soil onto the property where a high-end residential development is planned, TimesLedger Newspapers has learned that some of the soil in question came from a former Superfund site.

The property in question is called Waterpointe, a proposed development of expensive homes near the corner of 6th Road and 151st Place.

...well before Edgestone acquired the property, additional soil was dumped on top of the DEC-approved material under Barone and EBI’s watch. This eventually led the agency to fine the two companies a total of $150,000, half of which will be nixed if the problems are corrected, and prompted a cleanup of the unauthorized material. Some of that material included soil from a former electroplating facility in Brooklyn, Gordon said Tuesday night.

Documents obtained from the DEC via a Freedom of Information Law request showed that the soil she was referring to came from 154 N. 7th St. in Brooklyn.

That is the same address where in 1997 a company called All Plating Corp. was abandoned and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency later cleaned up leaking hazardous materials under its Superfund program, according to the EPA. A Superfund site is a hazardous waste site that poses harm to surrounding communities and is cleaned up under the EPA.

In two instances, Barone told TimesLedger Newspapers that the fine from DEC and subsequent required cleanup were due to a paperwork error. In essence, Barone Management and EBI did not do enough testing on the material it brought in to satisfy DEC requirements, he said.

A new environmental company overseeing the site estimated that removing the unauthorized material would take between weeks and months and would cost at least about $500,000.