Maybe Your Grandma Wasn't Wrong: Underground Molasses Injections to Kill Contaminants?

The New York State DEC met Wednesday night with concerned citizens in Brockport who still have legitimate concerns regarding what hopefully be the end of the road for a long six years of clean up for area residents.

The New York State DEC met Wednesday night with concerned citizens in Brockport who still have legitimate concerns regarding what hopefully be the end of the road for a long six years of clean up for area residents. The location of the former Dynacolor site, later purchased by 3M, is at 150 State Street
The DEC made the proposal known regarding their approach to cleanup at this meeting. The DEC outlined the choices available to them and their cost, and why this process was arrived at as the most feasible. “Enhanced reactive chlorination” is the recommended treatment, which has been used at some 200 sites countrywide.
The $1.3 million dollar project, which will be paid for by site owner 3M, involves the injecting of molasses (food grade) in a solution of water at some 56 injection points, or new wells, hopefully having an effect on the groundwater, soil and bedrock at the site.The injections were said to be going some 30 feet into the bedrock. In an anerobic process, the carbohydrates would eat the contaminants naturally through microbes. Estimated length of this process is two to three years. Although natural in process, the site will still remain a non residential site.
Prior to arriving at this process, they rejected other means of correction, one of which involved groundwater pumping at a cost of some two million dollars. Watching and monitoring, and doing nothing were the other options. .
Dynacolor Corporation is the reason for further pollution on Oxford Street. People lost their homes there, whicih were demolished. Thousands of cubic yards of contaminated soil was removed from the site in the last thirty odd years, with most of it since the cleanup that began in 1998 with the perserverance of the citizen’s group REACH (Residents=Environmentally Acting for Change)and community activist Shawn Lessord. Shawn is also the Erie Canalkeeper, and a member of the Waterkeeper Alliance, an international organization.
. The meeting was attended by about 40 residents of the village. The effectiveness of their public relations was questioned. The DEC stated that they sent press releases out, and also emailed those on their mailing list regarding this issue.