Squirrels, Solvents, and $600,000 Boogeymen — A DEC Tale as Told from Elmira’s Front Row
www.714BaldwinStreet.com It’s been a banner year for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC)—if you’re measuring in PR disasters. And few stories have captured the public’s bewildered attention quite like the tale of Peanut, Elmira’s most famous (and tragically doomed) squirrel. Seized from his caretaker and euthanized by the DEC despite testing negative for rabies, Peanut’s story ignited outrage across the Southern Tier. There were murals. There were headlines. There was even a heartfelt public apology... Peanut may have been just one small mammal, but his saga touched a nerve. It wasn’t about rabies. It was about unaccountable bureaucracy steamrolling common sense and trampling the relationship between citizens and their public servants. And I would know—I’ve had a front-row seat. For nearly a decade, I’ve been trying (and I use that word generously) to engage the DEC about my property at 714 Baldwin Street. What began as an effort toward mutual understanding has spiraled into a masterclass in obfuscation, avoidance, and bureaucratic kabuki theater. Their most recent public meeting at the Steel Memorial Library was a textbook example. The event, supposedly an informational session, was advertised on the library display sign as being about 417 Baldwin Street. That’s not a typo; that’s a diversion fit for a stage magician. Was it a clerical error or a strategic shuffle? Either way, the result was confusion. As I joked on the way in, maybe their concerns (and that $600,000 cleanup plan) had magically transferred to someone else’s property. Inside, the crowd was intimate: myself, my son, two curious locals, DEC Regional Director Tim Walsh, and a silent, baseball-capped man who neither wrote nor spoke nor later published anything. Media rep? Security? Government plant? Ghost of Peanut? The DEC’s host, Kira Bruno, is a well-meaning newcomer who previously forgot to invite me to the first meeting—causing a delay in the whole process. This time, she remembered, and introduced Mark Wright, a mumbly geologist-contractor whose explanation of chemical vapor intrusion was less “scientific clarity” and more “fog machine on a foggy day.” But when it came time to recommend a $600,000 remediation solution? Suddenly, things got crystal clear. I questioned how we leapt from prior cost estimates of $10K–$70K to $600,000. Kira claimed it was based on a blend of expert and public opinion. Here’s the twist: the public hadn’t spoken yet. We were still seated. All four of us. I asked the panel to make their data intelligible. Environmental reports are famously opaque, and most residents don’t have the time or training to decipher PPMs, plume models, and mitigation matrices. If you want true “public feedback,” try using plain English, visuals, analogies—anything accessible to the average person. Silence. Then came Harolyn Hood from NYS Health. Her warning about the potential reproductive risks of vaporized dry cleaning fluid made the room drop 10 degrees. That is, until she clarified: no airborne threat currently exists on neighboring properties. None outside my warehouse. And the chemicals in question? Sold commercially under the label brake cleaner. The same pungent solvent mechanics blast over greasy engine parts every day. Apparently, the air samples showed quantities so small, they could’ve been recorded in quantum code. But fear sells, and scary graphs justify big cleanups. Unfortunately for the DEC, the thriving local ecosystem didn’t get the memo. Groundhogs flourish on site. The earth is rich, clover-filled, and earthworms sunbathe like retirees on lawn chairs. Squirrels—plentiful, unbothered—scamper about like it's a woodland utopia.
