Casperkill Watershed Oral History Project

The abandoned Schatz Federal Bearing Company waste disposal site can be seen from the Rail Trail.

The Schatz site is located along Van Wagner Road, at the edge of the Casperkill watershed.  The site was originally a marshy wetland until extensive landfilling by the Schatz Company completely changed the topography of the area.  Five of the site’s twenty-two acres were filled in, and the site is now mostly flat with two small hills.

In 1949, when the Schatz Federal Bearing Company built a plant to manufacture ball bearings for industrial applications in downtown Poughkeepsie, the Schatz Co. also developed a site along Van Wagner Road to satisfy their disposal needs.  Wastes dumped at the site included: cutting oils, lubricants, grinding sludges, solvents, coolants and metal parts, as well as municipal and slag wastes.  By 1973 Schatz had discontinued dumping at the landfill, and a New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) inspection the following year revealed no environmental hazards—the refuse had been covered with soil, and no leachate was found.

In 1979, however, a rust-colored leachate was observed entering the Casperkill, and the NYSDEC recommended that the site be re-graded to divert rainfall away from the landfill area.  The following year, a NYSDEC study indicated soil PCB concentrations that exceeded EPA maximum contaminant levels.  Further study of the site found leachate in the bank next to the creek, and a NYSDEC water analysis in 1983 found high concentrations of chlorinated ethenes.  This finding resulted in the NYSDEC designating the Schatz site as “In-Place Toxic Site #314003,” leading to some site clean-up.

Although the Schatz site has been re-graded so that the Casperkill no longer runs through it, very little is known about the waste history of the Schatz site, or the current environmental status of this privately owned land.  No records from the company are available and the air photos that originally determined that dumping had been occurring at the site represent only six days out of a twenty-four year waste history.  This makes it difficult to know exactly how long the contaminants from the Schatz Federal Bearing dumping site will persist in the environment, and the extent to which they will continue to negatively impact the Casperkill.

This site, as well as the nearby FICA landfill and Route 44 municipal dump, demonstrate what little foresight was used when constructing waste sites outside of Poughkeepsie in the mid-1900s.  Perhaps it seemed like a good idea to dump municipal and industrial wastes out along Van Wagner Road when the majority of the region’s population was concentrated closer to the Hudson River in the City of Poughkeepsie.  However, recent population increases have resulted in the gradual expansion of the suburbs, such that there are residences even on the Schatz site itself.

Map of the site as a dump (1950-1970), and map of current Casperkill watershed.  Today the Casperkill watershed partially skirts the dumping site; this is due to the re-grading of the landfill area in the 1980s.

Information and map from: Metal Contamination of Surface Sediments in the Casper Creek Drainage System, James G.D. Peale, Dept. of Geology, Vassar College, 1991.

Photograph by Nadine Souto