crown cleaners of watertown inc.

3595 STATE ROUTE 3

The Crown Cleaners of Watertown, Inc. site includes a former laundry/dry-cleaning facility located in the Village of Herrings and a groundwater plume resulting from on-site contamination. The 9.82-acre property consists of a main building and several ancillary buildings situated parallel to Route 3 and along the Black River. The property is bordered to the north by Fort Drum, to the west by residential dwellings, to the east by a county-managed park, and to the south by the Black River. From 1890 until the mid-1960s, the property was used by the St. Regis Paper Company to produce paper bags and related products. In the late 1970s, the property was purchased by Crown Cleaners, which operated a dry cleaner and laundry. Crown Cleaners’ dry cleaning operation used tetrachloroethylene (PCE), as well as machine oils and greases. Waste water from the washing machines was discharged into basement storage pits, which then discharged through the foundation walls to the ground and the Black River. In 1991, the New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) discovered that the Village of Herrings’ public water supply well was contaminated with PCE. An investigation by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) indicated that the soil and ground water beneath the Crown Cleaners building were contaminated with PCE and other organic compounds. This investigation also indicated that the Crown Cleaners facility was the source of the PCE. As a result of this study, a treatment system for the village well was installed

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