Liz Montgomery is reporting for Porcupine Soup Coxsackie village officials are pondering the use of their eminent domain power to acquire the old American Valve Manufacturing Company property at 170 Mansion Street. Cleanup of the 15-acre Superfund site ended nearly 20 years ago and the village is again looking at the property, this time for use as a dog park and other municipal uses. According to county property records, American Valve is still the owner. Mayor Mark Evans said at a public hearing in September, the vacant land has been remediated, but digging is restricted to no more than three feet, thereby limiting what can be done with the property. The village is looking to use six acres on the northern side of the parcel. A three-year state Superfund remediation of the site was concluded in early 2004 after then-Attorney General Eliot Spitzer sued American Valve to finance the cleanup of the lead and toxic solvents left behind when the business was relocated to North Carolina. From 1920 until 1988, American Valve operated a valve manufacturing and assembly business at the location, leaving the parcel contaminated by lead, and the toxic solvent perchloroethylene that tainted the soil and groundwater. According to Evans, should any future remediation be required at the site, the state of New York is responsible. “The contamination will be there forever, but the issue is if it starts to percolate to the surface the village is not held liable,” Evans is quoted as saying. When a developer was interested in purchasing the property for housing a few years ago, Evans said residents along Mansion Street and Spencer Boulevard appealed to officials to obtain the property. “...In order to move forward, the village has to have some type of stated purpose for obtaining the land,” Evans said. “Thus far, the village is working under a dog park or some other type of municipal benefit. That’s where the Village is headed.” A second public hearing on the matter is scheduled for Oct. 11. Read the full story at porcupinesoup [dot] com.