A public meeting is scheduled for Thursday, May 18, to address the contaminated water at a former dry cleaners site in Nichols which threatens a public water supply. The meeting will be at 7:00 pm at the Nichols Elementary School in the Village of Nichols.

The contamination plume appears to be spreading toward a supply well which is less than 1500 feet downgradient of the site and provides water for most of the Village of Nichols.

The Mayor of Nichols, Michael P. O'Toole, sent a letter to the New York State Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) last month requesting "that a representative of NYSDEC be present" at the public meeting "to address all concerns of the public and Village, Town, and County government officials" in regard to the contaminated site.

According to the mayor's letter, "the Nichols Village Board and the public citizens they represent find the way in which the 'South Main Street Dry Cleaners, Site #754014' is presently being handled by the NYSDEC unacceptable."

Mayor Nichols states in his letter that there are no records of the Village of Nichols being notified of a Preliminary Site Assessment (PSA) in 1996 and there are no records of the village being notified of the results of tests at the site in 1997. The village never received a NYSDEC Inactive Hazardous Waste Disposal Report.

"It's very clear that little effort has been put into and/or placed upon the 'serious nature of this situation' which has an effect on preschool, elementary school, churches, business and some 700 customers of the public water system by the NYSDEC," the mayor said in his letter.

Examples cited in the mayor's letter of what he terms "little effort" on the DEC's part include:

1) Wrong property owners notified, other property owners not notified.

2) Inaccurate tax map numbers used to identify the properties

3) Village and other local officials notified only after they had made inquiry into the situation

4) Conflicting information given by the NYSDEC in their mailings.

In his letter to NYSDEC, Mayor O'Toole also mentioned that when NYSDEC, was contacted "comments to some of the questions asked of them were 'cold' and 'harsh.'" According to the mayor's letter, when NYSDEC was asked "What happens if this contamination reaches the 'only' public water source for the Village?" NYSDEC's response was "Looks like the Village of Nichols will be drinking a lot of bottled water."

In March 2000, property owners and the mayor of Nichols received letters from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) stating that they ranked the site, the South Main Street Dry Cleaners, as a Class 2 Inactive Hazardous Waste Disposal Site "which indicates a significant amount of hazardous waste is present, and the presence of the hazardous waste has resulted in a significant threat to human health or the environment" and that action is required. The source of the contamination is tetrachloroethylene (PCE), a chemical used in the dry cleaning industry. It is believed that dry cleaning solvents were disposed in a septic tank or drywell."