TIMES
MID
HUDSON
Vol. 28, No 38
3
SEPTEMBER 21 - 27, 2016
3
ONE DOLLAR
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studios
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Page 40
Page 44
SERVING NEWBURGH AND NEW WINDSOR
Ousted
Update on water contamination
city Dems
State confirms it will move forward with blood testing
re-elected to
committee
By SHANTAL RILEY
[email protected]
“The City of Newburgh drinking
water has never been this clean in at least
the last 50 years,” said Newburgh City
Manager Michael Ciaravino, sharing the
“good news” at an information forum on
PFOS in the city water supply.
Ciaravino addressed a crowd of about
300 people who attended the forum at
Mount Saint Mary College on Monday
Night. The city manager held up a large,
plastic funnel to demonstrate the inner
workings of the city’s watershed.
“At the base of the funnel is Lake
Washington,” he said. “Inside the funnel
contains parts of the town of Newburgh,
parts of the Town of New Windsor,
Stewart Airport, the intersection of I-84
and I-87…”
Ciaravino
explained
Stewart
International Airport is at the highest
elevation in watershed, approximately
150 feet above Washington Lake.
“Whatever goes on inside this funnel,
guess what, it comes down hill,” he said.
Ciaravino reviewed the events of
the past few months, reminding the
audience how perfluorooctane sulfonate
(PFOS) was detected in the city drinking
water supply in the spring, and how
PFOS was also found at levels as high as
5,900 parts per trillion the Stewart Air
National Guard Base.
The city was forced to switch to
using water from Brown’s Pond and,
subsequently, the Catskill Aqueduct.
Cleanup work at Washington Lake
currently includes the installation
of pumps to prevent flooding and a
portable, granular-activated carbon
filtration system that will serve to
By SHANTAL RILEY
[email protected]
Healthcare worker Malcolm Olaker holds a sign at a forum on PFOS contamination in the
city water supply at Mount Saint Mary College on Monday.
clean the lake and protect Town of New
Windsor water. “We’re trying to be good
neighbors,” Ciaravino said.
Ciaravino
thanked
the
state
Department
of
Environmental
Conservation for heading up the project.
However, “there’s still a problem at
rec pond,” he said, speaking about a
recreation pond at the air base, which
was declared a state Superfund site last
month. “That water at the moment is
still coming down Silver Stream,” the
city manager said.
Continued on page 27
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A group of Democrats expelled from
the City of Newburgh Democratic
Committee on charges of disloyalty this
year were re-elected in the local primary
last Tuesday.
Unofficial results show voters ushered
eight out of eleven of the so-called disloyal
members back to their committee seats.
Another ran unchallenged.
The Democrats were tossed off
the committee largely due to efforts
of committee Chairman Johnathan
Jacobson, who brought disloyalty charges
against them due to their support of
incumbent Mayor Judy Kennedy in the
city mayoral race last year. Running as a
Democrat, Jacobson challenged Kennedy
to become mayor and lost.
Both Jacobson and Kennedy won seats
on the city committee last week.
The self-described “Reform” Democrats
were ousted from the committee following
an investigation by a fact-finding panel
of the Orange County Democratic
Committee, which Jacobson chaired for
decades.
In Ward 1, Charline Boyle and Mark
Carnes – both accused of disloyalty – were
handily re-elected, each garnering more
than 40 percent of the votes. In Ward 2,
Ramona Monteverde, also charged with
Continued on page 4