April 6, 2018 at 1:53 p.m.
A YEAR AFTER FLOODS
Rerouted, polluted: Schoharie County needs clean water
Tropical storm damage still affects outliers
Along the Schoharie Creek and its tributaries, an outlying area that's mostly home to the poor and isolated elderly, residents have struggled to bounce back after flooding destroyed homes and businesses.
To make matters worse, an estimated 100 people in rural towns and hamlets have been avoiding what they believe to be contaminated water from private wells for the past year.
Parishes and other groups have been donating bottled water to use for drinking, making baby formula, bathing and other needs.
Volunteers say the contamination was an aftereffect of the flooding, but faulty septic tanks and old, improperly-drilled wells "made it easier for it to happen," said Kelly Diamond, one of three volunteers with Southern Valley Recovery.
Her group has teamed with St. Clare's parish in Colonie to address unmet needs in the southeastern towns of Middleburgh, Fulton, Blenheim, Broome, Gilboa and Conesville - a 400-square-mile area with a population of about 6,000.
In deep water
The well at Ms. Diamond's own West Middleburgh uphill residence has been tested and decontaminated, she said, but "my neighbors who are down the road are not so lucky.
"The water system underground changed," she continued, describing her now constantly damp basement despite drought conditions this summer. The flood "moved things."
Since April, St. Clare's has donated an average of 40 cases of water a week to a Middleburgh food pantry. St. Henry's parish in Averill Park and Holy Spirit parish in East Greenbush recently donated two truckloads and 75 gallons, respectively, and a women's group at St. Gabriel's parish in Rotterdam has launched its own drive.
Deacon Gary Riggi, who oversees the St. Clare's Catholic Relief Fund and other volunteer efforts, encouraged parishes across the Diocese to get involved with water collection and other aid.
The deacon, who's also a construction worker, turned his attention to the Southern Valley last February, after getting Rotterdam Junction recovery efforts off the ground.
His team and Catholic Charities of Schoharie County have helped maintain the two major food pantries serving the area, started a delivery program for residents who can't afford gas and won grants for a grocery store and a microbrewery to enter the region.
Some hope
"There's a lot of hope coming," Deacon Riggi said. "There's beginning to be a spiritual awakening down there that's empowering them."
But the overwhelming need for food and especially for clean water has prevented him from accomplishing more.
"I've never seen people living like this in my life," he said, describing murky, putrid water in dozens of private wells.
James Chichester, another Southern Valley Recovery volunteer, has seen tar in the water pipes at a Middleburgh trailer park.
"I wouldn't let an animal drink the water," said Mr. Chichester, a Livingstonville resident whose hilltop house was unaffected by the contamination. "Would you drink it if it came out of your tap black?"
Mr. Chichester still receives water-related distress calls from neighbors weekly. Deacon Riggi's group has donated test kits, but the volunteers haven't found the time to bring them to an Albany lab to get results.
Carl Christman, a sanitarian at the Schoharie County Health Department, said he isn't aware of any flood-related contamination in the county's private water systems, which serve 20,000 people. He suggested concerned residents ask the department for directions on how to disinfect and flush wells (call 295-8382).
No help coming
Ms. Diamond claimed her neighbors repeatedly called the county health department to no avail. But some residents, Deacon Riggi said, didn't bother seeking help.
"They were a forgotten area," he said. "The people were so used to having doors shut in their face that they just stopped asking. The people that don't have a voice are the ones that [authorities] don't worry about."
Close to 2,000 people use the food pantries every month; St. Clare's and Catholic Charities funds are running dry.
"We're running out of everything because people think [the crisis] is over," Deacon Riggi said. "Everything that you can think of that we take for granted, we need."
That translates to, among other things, baby supplies and toiletries, licensed contractors, pro-bono lawyers and more volunteers to deliver supplies and visit with residents.
"It's so simple," Deacon Riggi said. "Giving of yourself is probably the greatest gift you can give to somebody.
"Until you get down there and see it, you don't realize how helpless they are," he continued. "It's like they're in the third world."
(For instructions on how to protect drinking water after a flood, see http://water.epa.gov/drink/info/well/whatdo.cfm. For advice on testing, see www.cdc.gov/healthywater/drinking/private/wells/testing.html.)[[In-content Ad]]
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