Preliminary work starts next week in connection with the possible cleanup of a portion of the Genesee River, related to toxic releases from Kodak Park over the years, now known as the Eastman Business Park.
Kodak had operated a treatment plant for years that handled chemical waste, and the area the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation is looking at spans from the lower falls of the Genesee to Lake Ontario.
Bob Schick is director of the Division of Environmental Remediation for the DEC. He tells WXXI News that staff will begin to do its assessment of that portion of the river next week.
“It’s got a variety of different activities scheduled, we’ll be doing some sampling of fish, we’ll be doing some sampling of the macro-invertebrates in the sediments and we’ll also be doing some cataloguing of what the fish population is in the river. All this will be taking place starting roughly next week, and probably into November.”
Schick says it may not be until 2017 that any sort of remediation actually begins.
“ Based upon the findings there will be an evaluation of what needs to be done and dredging is always one thing that always comes to mind but there may be some other things that could be appropriate.”
Any cleanup would be paid for through an environmental trust that was set up during Kodak’s bankruptcy case a couple of years ago. It consists of $49 million from Kodak and a pledge of $50 million by New York State.
