NYSDEC Will Not Enforce Regulations on East Field

Since the contaminated “historic fill” found in the soil of East Field was added before the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation had regulations, the agency won’t start a regulatory enforcement action for the field.

“The issue is that the fill that’s in the ground has been there longer then they’ve [NYSEDC] had regulations, so it predates their regulations,” said Irvington School Board President Robert Grados. “We want the field safe for our kids. Though we didn’t have a legal obligation to go to the DEC in the first place, we still wanted to run this by the book. We are going to work with the DEC to get their blessing, because they are the experts.” 

East Field, which is mainly used as a practice athletic field at the middle/high school campus, has been closed since Aug. 29 and will remain closed until the district conducts more testing to determine whether the field needs to be remediated and to what extent.

Click here for the previous story on what contaminants were found in the soil.

Grados said that if the testing results deem that remediation is necessary, the district will ask the NYSDEC and New York Department of Health to approve the district’s remediation plan. However, it hasn’t yet been determined whether the contamination will require clean up.

Since the district has been focusing on the East Field issue, the school board will not authorize a bond referendum for upgrades to Meszaros and Oley Track for residents to vote on in December. Click here for a previous story on the proposed referendum. 

“I wouldn’t want to present a bond for Meszaros and then have to do a second one for East Field,” said Grados. “We’re not going to be doing that this year, there’s not enough time between now and December. We’re going to revisit the time line to make it more realistic and propose that to the community. I think as a board, we’ve heard a lot from the community and we’re willing to start moving forward again and work on Meszaros.”