cleanup · Chautauqua County
Dowcraft — South Dow Street
Falconer
Former woolen mill and steel-partition factory where a trichloroethene vapor degreaser contributed to a chlorinated-solvent groundwater plume. Source treatment, monitoring, and institutional controls continue under a Class 4 State Superfund remedy.
The documented story
What happened here?
Industrial use at the approximately 2.2-acre South Dow Street property began with a woolen mill around 1890. From 1939 until 1999, the plant manufactured steel partitions and used a trichloroethene vapor degreaser.
DEC lists Dowcraft as State Superfund site 907020, Class 4, reflecting a constructed remedy that still requires treatment, monitoring, and site management.
Chronology in context
Turning points in the public record
About 1890–1939
A woolen mill occupied the South Dow Street property.
1939–1999
Steel-partition manufacturing included chlorinated-solvent degreasing.
2003
DEC selected a remedy for contaminated soil and groundwater.
2019 onward
Additional source-area treatment using zero-valent iron and continued groundwater monitoring addressed remaining chlorinated VOCs.
2026 review
DEC reporting documented continuing monitoring and remedy evaluation.
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 small former factory becomes a decades-long groundwater treatment site
DEC's decision and periodic reviews trace the public consequence of historic degreasing: treatment and monitoring continued long after manufacturing ended, while river sampling in the reviewed record did not demonstrate a site-related Chadakoin River impact.
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation ↗Environmental record
Documented impacts
- Trichloroethene and its breakdown products affected groundwater beneath and downgradient of the former plant.
- DEC records describe the plume extending beneath the neighboring industrial property toward the Chadakoin River area. River sampling cited in the current review did not demonstrate a site-related river impact.
- The mapped marker represents the cleanup property and documented plume history, not a claim about every building or parcel in Falconer.
Response
Cleanup and controls
- Cleanup has included source-area excavation or treatment, groundwater treatment, monitoring wells, and injections of zero-valent iron to promote contaminant breakdown.
- Land-use and groundwater-use restrictions, excavation procedures, monitoring, and periodic remedy reviews remain in place.
Then and now
The site today
Dowcraft remains a managed groundwater cleanup. The continuing program is why it belongs in the atlas despite the relatively small property footprint.
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.