cleanup · Chautauqua County
Carroll Landfill
Frewsburg / Town of Carroll
Former municipal and construction-and-demolition landfill near Conewango Creek, wetlands, and homes. The roughly 25-acre disposal property has required leachate and groundwater controls, treatment, monitoring, and long-term management.
The documented story
What happened here?
Carroll Landfill is an approximately 25-acre former municipal and construction-and-demolition disposal property in the Frewsburg area. Its location near homes, wetlands, and Conewango Creek made leachate, groundwater, drainage, and surface-water protection central to the remedy.
The remedy was designed around a particularly human concern: groundwater near the landfill supplies the Frewsburg water district. Closure therefore joined a cover and leachate controls with groundwater treatment, monitoring, contingency planning, and restrictions on disturbing the buried waste.
Long-term sampling has added a newer chapter. The 2022 periodic review found no VOC or SVOC exceedances in sampled groundwater and considered several metal exceedances consistent with historical background, but found PFOA or PFOS above then-applicable state guidance values in two East Landfill Cell wells. That is a monitoring-well finding—not evidence that every nearby tap or Conewango Creek was contaminated.
A rural landfill required an operating water-treatment remedy
Carroll Landfill sits between a waste mass, wetlands, homes, and Conewango Creek
25 acresapproximately, within the former disposal property
Landfill era
Local disposal occupied a sensitive creek-and-wetland setting
Municipal refuse and construction-and-demolition material were placed near homes, wetlands, and Conewango Creek. The later transfer-related use of the property is a separate operating history from the buried landfill.
Investigation and construction
Leachate made closure an active system
State and local work evaluated the waste footprint, groundwater, drainage, wetlands, and surface-water pathways. The selected remedy combined landfill cover with collection and treatment rather than relying on a cap alone.
Present
Treatment and inspection keep the closed landfill protective
Monitoring wells, drainage structures, access controls, land restrictions, treatment, inspections, and maintenance remain part of the remedy. The visible infrastructure is continuing cleanup work, not abandoned equipment.
Atlas classification: environmental detection, agency investigation.
PFAS activity, investigation, or detection is documented in the cited site record. That documentation does not by itself establish off-site exposure or a health effect in any individual.
Compounds and evidence
Detected
Medium: groundwater monitoring wells
Detected
Medium: groundwater monitoring wells
Evidence limit: The 2022 periodic review reported PFOA or PFOS above then-applicable guidance values in two East Landfill Cell wells. Monitoring-well detections do not by themselves establish exposure through a home, public-water supply, wetland, or creek.
C8 and APFO: PFOA is often called C8. APFO is the ammonium salt of PFOA, but a PFOA environmental result does not identify APFO as the original product or prove where it came from.
News record
Major news events
Coverage selected here marks a turning point in public awareness, policy, enforcement, employment, or cleanup. Links open at the original publisher or archive; WNYAtlas does not reproduce restricted articles or images.
A landfill remedy is designed around Frewsburg's drinking-water setting
Because groundwater near the landfill supplies the Frewsburg water district, the state remedy joined landfill controls, leachate collection, groundwater treatment, monitoring, and contingency planning rather than treating the waste mound alone.
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation ↗Monitoring becomes the continuing protection for nearby homes, wetlands, and Conewango Creek
The human consequence is a durable water-supply and land-management obligation; the historic landfill record does not by itself establish contamination in every current household tap.
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation ↗Chemical guide
Chemicals named in this record
These links explain potential hazards and exposure pathways. A chemical named in a record does not establish that anyone was exposed or harmed.
Health context
Why PFAS are a long-term concern
PFAS are a large family of manufactured chemicals. Many are highly persistent, and some can remain in the environment or build up in people and animals over time. Persistence can allow releases to move through groundwater, surface water, waste systems, food, and fish long after the original use has ended.
Human studies have found associations between increased exposure to certain PFAS and higher cholesterol, lower antibody response to some vaccines, changes in liver enzymes, pregnancy-induced hypertension and preeclampsia, small decreases in birth weight, and kidney or testicular cancer for PFOA. Evidence differs by compound, and research continues. A site detection does not show that a particular person was exposed or that PFAS caused an illness.
Chronology
Timeline
- Landfill era
Municipal and construction-and-demolition wastes were disposed at the Town of Carroll property.
- Investigation
State and local work evaluated the waste mass, leachate, groundwater, wetlands, and nearby receptors.
- Remedial design
The selected remedy was translated into landfill, collection, treatment, and monitoring construction plans.
- Construction and closure
Engineering controls were installed to contain waste and manage contaminated water.
- 2022 review
DEC's periodic review found PFOA or PFOS above applicable guidance values in two East Landfill Cell monitoring wells and recommended continued inspections and monitoring.
- Present
Treatment, monitoring, inspection, maintenance, and water-supply protections continue under long-term management.
Environmental record
Documented impacts
- Landfill leachate and contaminated groundwater required collection and treatment.
- The setting near Conewango Creek and wetlands created sensitive surface-water and ecological pathways.
- PFOA or PFOS exceeded the guidance values used in the 2022 review in two monitoring wells, while VOCs and SVOCs did not exceed their applicable criteria in that sampling round.
Response
Cleanup and controls
- The remedy uses landfill closure and cover systems to reduce infiltration and direct contact.
- Leachate or affected groundwater is collected and treated.
- Monitoring wells, drainage structures, annual inspections, severe-weather checks, maintenance, access controls, and land-use restrictions support long-term performance.
Then and now
The site today
Carroll Landfill remains a managed disposal property near homes, wetlands, a public-water setting, and an important creek corridor. The visible closure and treatment systems are continuing components of the remedy, while the PFAS results show why an older landfill's monitoring program must be able to respond to contaminants that were not part of the original cleanup vocabulary.
Atlas connections
Connected places
These collections explain documented material, facility, waterway, ownership, or cleanup relationships. Inclusion does not imply that every place shares one contaminant source or plume.
Southern Tier small-industry cleanups
Foundries, furniture and veneer works, machining plants, dry cleaners, and rural disposal sites show that Western New York's cleanup history extends well beyond its largest waterfront factories.
Farwell Road represents a managed hazardous-waste landfill outside the major urban industrial corridors.
Municipal landfillCarroll LandfillCarroll connects local waste disposal to wetlands, Conewango Creek, and long-term treatment.
Tool-manufacturing complexD.C. Rollforms / Proto ToolProto Tool brings electroplating, heat treatment, degreasing, and river-edge remediation into the collection.
Small solvent siteC&B Dry CleanersThe dry cleaner demonstrates how a very small parcel can create a consequential subsurface cleanup.
Coatings and solvent siteEssex / Hope SiteEssex / Hope documents a long-running coatings property with an amended remedy and a separately investigated downgradient area.
Chlorinated-solvent groundwater cleanupDowcraft — South Dow StreetDowcraft connects former manufacturing and vapor degreasing to continuing groundwater treatment and monitoring.
Municipal and industrial-waste landfillJamestown City LandfillThe former city landfill preserves Jamestown's documented municipal and industrial-disposal history while clearly stating its current Class 3 status.
Bronze foundry cleanupEllison Bronze CompanyEllison Bronze adds metal-bearing foundry material, stabilization, containment, and continuing management to the Falconer record.
Petroleum and veneer worksBush IndustriesBush Industries layers early petroleum use with later wood-products manufacturing.
Foundry and machine shopRandolph FoundryRandolph adds discarded foundry sand, drums, and asbestos to the southern-tier industrial record.
Die-casting and machining plantLexington MachiningLexington documents solvent use and long-term groundwater management at a smaller manufacturing plant.
Southern-tier landfills and disposal sites
These rural and small-community properties show different waste-disposal histories and cleanup stages. They are a comparative collection, not evidence of a shared waste stream.
The gravel pit received an estimated 600 drums from an industrial plant and later required solvent-source and groundwater remediation.
Landfill under characterizationIschua LandfillThe former landfill's mixed waste history and emerging-contaminant findings remain under state investigation.
Managed hazardous-waste landfillFarwell Road LandfillFarwell Road is a closed county disposal site governed by engineering and institutional controls.
Municipal and construction landfillCarroll LandfillCarroll adds a separate leachate, groundwater, wetland, and long-term management record near Frewsburg.