As concerned residents and environmentalists gathered on Sunday afternoon at the Four Corners Pond in Sterling Forest Park in demonstration over waterway contamination, the Town of Tuxedo disputed the source of the recent fish die-off.

Department of Environmental Conservation spokeswoman Wendy Rosenbach was quoted by Time-Herald Record reporter John Sullivan as saying that the DEC “water quality experts who visited the Tuxedo pond on March 13 determined the cause of the die-off to be a depletion of oxygen in the water. The department is looking into the mulch pile as a potential catalyst for the problem but has yet to make a determination, she said.”

Town of Tuxedo Supervisor Peter Dolan said in the same article that “cleanup of culverts in the water basin may have reduced the water levels significantly over the past three weeks.”

Others say the massive mulch pile on Town of Tuxedo land adjacent to Sterling Forest wetlands, and operated by Perfect Cut, is the likely source of contamination into the Tuxedo Lake Basin. Photo documentation of the fish die-off and thick pink-orange substance floating on the pond and in wetland near the mulch site can be seen here and here. Weekend rains washed away much of the foamy substance.

Geoff Welch, chair of the Ramapo River Committee, said in a statement sent to Willie Janeway, the state Department of Environmental Conservation’s Region 3 director, that the mulch site should have its permit revoked and be closed and remediated.

In 2010, Tuxedo was fined $66,000 by the DEC for various citations at the site, located on Long Meadow Road.

The waterways feeding Four Corners Pond belong to a system of streams, brooks and ponds that make up the Wee Wah water basin, which feeds the Ramapo River.

The watershed is also adjacent to the Tuxedo Lake Basin, which feeds Tuxedo Lake, a reservoir for villagers in Tuxedo Park.

Tuxedo Park Mayor Tom Wilson came out to the protest Sunday. “We’re concerned about groundwater contamination in all directions,” he said.

John Yrizzary, a member of the Sterling Forest Partnership, said he and his wife, Mary Yrizzary, president of the partnership, traced a dark, sometimes reddish ooze, flowing through the swamplands, brooks and other waterways that feed Four Corners Pond.

Others had taken photos of a thick, pink substance floating atop a pond located directly next to the mulch pile. But much of that substance had been washed away in the rain Saturday night, he said.

Brooks and lakes — including Sterling Lake — upstream of the mulch pile appear unaffected, John Yrizzary said.

Source: John Sullivan, Time-Herald Record

Photo Source: Geoff Welch

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