IBM Endicott Settlement

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

IBM offers payments to residents

Mayor likes proposal, but some wary

BY GREG ERBSTOESSER
Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin (NY)
Friday, September 3, 2004 

ENDICOTT -- There's a mixed reaction to IBM Corp.'s offer to pay $10,000
or more to Endicott property owners whose properties have been affected
by the underground chemical pollution that has tainted the area. 

For Endicott Mayor Joan Hickey Pulse, the one-time financial payment of
$10,000 or 8 percent of the property value -- whichever is higher -- is
a plus. 

"This is what we had hoped for from IBM Corp. to go along with its
ongoing remediation efforts," she said. 

Joseph Havel of Arthur Avenue isn't so sure. The home he owns with his
wife, Betty, a village trustee, has a chemical vapor ventilation system
in the basement, and he's poised to reject the offer. 

"I want them to clean it up," he said of the pollution problem. 

The offer is the latest development in the ongoing effort by the company
to address residents' concerns in the cleanup of underground chemical
contamination from a chemical spill reported on the IBM Endicott campus
in 1979. Tests taken last year showed traces of chemical vapors were
entering homes and businesses in a 300-acre area south of the plant,
prompting the company to offer to install venting systems in about 480
properties. 

...

for the entire article, see
http://www.pressconnects.com/special/endicottspill/stories/090304-114313.shtml

for complete coverage of the Endicott spill, see
http://www.pressconnects.com/special/endicottspill/

-- 


Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org