Last week Lloyd Supervisor Dave Plavchak touched upon the submitted Soil Mitigation Plan from the proposed Villages project, saying he wanted all of this to be done, “as quickly as we can to get it out of the way,” concerning the chemicals and pesticides that were used on the former apple orchard site for decades.

The proposed Villages project consists of a 340 foot long Assisted Living Facility and 197 senior living cottages/duplexes that will run up and across the nearly 60 acre site. It is slated to be built on the western side of Route 9W, opposite the Bridgeview Shopping Plaza.

Representatives of developer Marc Sanderson said they will perform air monitoring as soils are moved. There are two areas of concern in a 12+ acre section running up from the front of the property that has been identified to have varying degrees of pesticides, mercury, arsenic and lead, with a 6.69 acre section having contaminants up to 1 foot in depth and a smaller 1.75 acre section where contamination are from 1.5 ft to 2 feet deep. The developer intends to remove the agricultural trees and is proposing to dig a deep hole where contaminated soils will be deposited and put under compaction along with demarcation layers required by the Department of Environmental Conservation [DEC]. It will then be back-filled to bring it up to grade. It was noted that because the developer must maintain the under 5 acre storm water requirements, plans are to start work from the back of the property.

After a question from Councilman Joe Mazzetti, the representative said they will not line the buried contaminated soil, claiming that once the soil is buried it will not pose a health issue because it will not travel or migrate with ground water or seep into neighboring streams or ponds.

Councilman Mike Guerriero asked if the soil will be tested in the future, the representative said, “There are no requirements by the DEC to monitor any of it because of its insolubility and the type of material. [During mitigation] we just have to prevent people from touching it or ingesting it, so that is why they do air monitoring.”