By Carol P. Bartold     

Feb. 22, 2017:  In the interest of remaining informed and educated about soil and water testing at The Bronxville School and the Marbledale Road site in Tuckahoe where the Marriott Hotel and restaurant are being constructed, the Bronxville Board of Trustees has hired an independent environmental consultant, Ecosystems Strategies, Inc., to help trustees understand, evaluate, and interpret testing results and data.

Ecosystems Strategies Inc. will conduct a technical review of all environmental reports submitted that pertain to the Tuckahoe site and advise the village on findings in those reports. The consultant will provide a summary of technical information and offer an opinion about impacts, if any, of the site on Bronxville.

The signed contract with Ecosystems Strategies, Inc. indicates that a report should be forthcoming by the end of February.

At the Bronxville Village Board of Trustees January meeting, Mayor Mary Marvin recognized jurisdictional boundaries between the villages of Tuckahoe and Bronxville and pledged to respect them. At the same time, she said, the trustees would make every effort to preserve the village’s quality of life.

“This is a matter that affects all of our lives,” Marvin said.

Approval by Tuckahoe Village trustees of the Marriott Hotel at 109 Marbledale Road, a Brownfield Clean-Up site, raised concerns in Bronxville about the possible migration of groundwater contaminants from the construction site. The hotel will sit on the site of a former marble quarry, which, after closing, was used for commercial and industrial purposes and became a landfill contaminated by items and substances deposited there.

Dan Carlin, assistant superintendent for business at the Bronxville schools, reported in January that soil and groundwater testing on the Bronxville school campus had revealed the presence of heavy metal and pesticides. "Nobody knows where these substances came from,” Carlin said. He stated that the school does not use pesticides. It has been suggested, he said, that the pesticides traveled to the school property in previous stormwater runoff from nearby residential neighborhoods.

The Marbledale Road Environmental Coalition, a group of concerned citizens, reported that, near the beginning of February, the developer began to excavate a “hot spot” on the hotel site without air monitoring protocols in place to gauge the level of toxic substances in vapors released by that operation. Emissions from a “hot spot” location may expose nearby populations to elevated health risks from air and water pollution on the site.

On the day that excavation began, the Marbledale Road Environmental Coalition attorney requested and received an appearance before the New York State Supreme Court in White Plains to seek a temporary restraining order and injunction against further digging on the site.

There was no indication about when the judge might deliver a decision. The developer is free to continue excavating until a decision is made.

Pictured here:  Test tubes of the type that might measure soil and water contamination.

Photo by A. Warner and N. Bower