The testing of Washington Lake and Silver Stream near the Stewart Airport Air National Guard base has given the state Department of Environmental Conservation enough proof to declare the area a Superfund site because of PFOS contamination, believed to have originated from the Guard base.
Another body of water at Stewart, Crestview Lake, has not been tested. That is the lake on the New Windsor side of the airport, which was originally part of a Teamsters-owned recreational area that later was owned by the Town of New Windsor. It is now in the leasehold of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs the airport.
Crestview was used for swimming for years with Orange County taking over the management some 10 years ago, but there has been no swimming there since then.
Crestview Lake has not been sampled for PFOS contamination at this point, a DEC spokeswoman told MidHudsonNews.com. “DEC’s preliminary review indicated the lake does not receive drainage from known or suspected source areas. As the DEC investigation into the PFOS contamination in Newburgh continues, it is possible this area will be reevaluated and the lake could be sampled in the future,” said DEC spokeswoman Wendy Rosenbach.
