cleanup · Cattaraugus County
Moench Tanning
Gowanda
Former chrome-leather tannery and captive industrial landfill on Palmer Street. Historic records document major wastewater loading to Cattaraugus Creek, followed by a 1971 treatment plant, sludge disposal, closure, and continuing groundwater and creek-edge management.
The documented story
What happened here?
The Moench company history begins with Christopher Moench's Cattaraugus tannery in 1896. The family acquired the Gaensslen & Fisher tannery in Gowanda in 1902 and consolidated its leather operations there in 1914. Brown Shoe Company acquired Moench in 1925; the Gowanda plant later produced upper leather and shoe linings as a Brown Group division.
Federal investigators using 1960 data identified Moench and Peter Cooper as the two major industrial pollution sources in the Cattaraugus Creek basin. Moench alone reported approximately 1.67 million gallons of wastewater per day, 8,730 pounds per day of biochemical oxygen demand, and 7,600 pounds per day of suspended solids—an organic load described as equivalent to a population of 52,400.
Moench completed its own wastewater-treatment plant in May 1971. Treatment reduced direct process loading but created sludge, which went to the adjacent Palmer Street Landfill until 1982. The approximately 25-acre captive landfill accepted tannery wastes rather than general regional refuse, and its records were reconstructed largely from employee interviews because virtually no operating logs survived.
The regulated site is not the entire village or every former tannery building. It is an approximately 25-acre area covering the closed industrial landfill and its support land south of the former plant, bounded by steep wooded slopes, a swampy area, Splinter Creek, and Cattaraugus Creek.
Caleres, Brown Shoe's corporate successor, voluntarily closed the landfill under hazardous-waste rules from 1990 to 1992. DEC approved post-closure care in 1993, but the cover and monitoring program continued for decades before a 2019 consent order and site-management plan restated the remaining obligations.
Water shapes the present story as much as tanning shaped the past. The landfill sits beside two creeks that can overtop or erode their banks during severe storms, so streambank protection and climate vulnerability are integral to the containment remedy rather than separate beautification work.
A century of tanning ended with a landfill beside two creek systems
Moench's closed tannery landfill still depends on streambank protection
1.67M gal/dayMoench wastewater flow reported for 1960
1902–1960
A large chrome-leather operation grew beside Cattaraugus Creek
Moench acquired the Gowanda tannery in 1902. By 1960, federal investigators counted its wastewater among the basin's two major industrial pollution sources, with organic loading equivalent to a population of 52,400.
1971–1982
Wastewater treatment created a new disposal stream
The May 1971 treatment plant reduced direct process discharge but generated sludge. Moench placed that sludge in its adjacent Palmer Street Landfill until 1982.
1990-1992
The company closed the industrial landfill under state oversight
A cover isolated remaining tannery waste and the property entered a long-term monitoring and inspection phase rather than unrestricted closure.
2019-present
Creek erosion became part of remedy maintenance
Updated management requirements formalized continuing controls, and additional erosion protection was installed near Splinter Creek in 2021 to protect the landfill edge.
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 creek-edge tannery landfill moves from closure into long-term erosion control
The landfill was capped, but its position beside Cattaraugus Creek made bank stability, storm damage, groundwater monitoring, and repair part of the continuing community record rather than a one-time closure.
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation ↗Gowanda planning identifies the former tannery as both controlled land and a creekfront reuse question
The state-designated Brownfield Opportunity Area record places the capped tannery beside homes, Cattaraugus Creek, and the Zoar Valley Gateway area, documenting why reuse must preserve the landfill remedy and public access decisions together.
New York Department of State / Village of Gowanda ↗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.
Chronology
Timeline
- About 1860s–1900
Earlier tanning activity developed along Palmer Street and the Gowanda creek corridor.
- 1902–1914
The Moench family acquired the Gowanda tannery and consolidated its leather operations there.
- 1925
Brown Shoe Company purchased Moench, which later became a Brown Group division.
- 1960
A federal Lake Erie investigation recorded 1.67 million gallons per day of Moench wastewater and very large organic and solids loads to the Cattaraugus Creek basin.
- May 1971
Moench completed an industrial wastewater-treatment plant; resulting sludge was disposed in the Palmer Street Landfill until 1982.
- Late 1992
Tannery operations ceased. Most of the more-than-30-building complex was demolished in 1993–1994 with asbestos, tank, utility, and chromium-related environmental work.
- 1990–1993
The company closed the landfill with a low-permeability soil cover, and DEC approved continuing post-closure monitoring and maintenance.
- 1993–2019
Groundwater wells, bank seeps, inspections, mowing, drainage, and cap maintenance carried the remedy through more than two decades of voluntary post-closure care.
- 2019
A new consent order and site-management plan formalized the cover, environmental easement, groundwater restrictions, inspections, and annual reporting.
- 2020–2021
Monitoring found no evidence of downgradient migration requiring corrective action, while new riprap and geomembrane erosion protection was designed and installed near Splinter Creek.
- 2025 planning
Gowanda's Brownfield Opportunity Area plan placed the controlled tannery property within a larger creekfront reuse and public-access conversation.
Environmental record
Documented impacts
- Historic federal records establish major industrial wastewater loading to Cattaraugus Creek; they should not be confused with present permitted flow or present water quality.
- The landfill received sole-leather extract, rendering waste, leather and hair scraps, finishing and spray-booth wastes, wastewater-treatment sludge, and construction debris.
- Investigators at the neighboring Peter Cooper site found elevated arsenic and chromium in creek sediment upstream of Peter Cooper and identified Moench or another upstream source as a possibility, not a definitive attribution.
- Tannery-related waste remains within the defined landfill footprint beneath the engineered cover; the public file does not support extending that waste boundary across every former industrial parcel on Palmer Street.
- The monitoring network covers shallow and deep overburden, bedrock, and creek-bank seeps. The 2020 review found no off-site migration requiring corrective action and documented generally declining or low VOC, lead, arsenic, and chromium trends, with periodic shallow arsenic exceedances inside the monitored system.
- A one-time emerging-contaminant round found no 1,4-dioxane or PFAS above the then-used screening levels in on-site downgradient wells. PFOA exceeded its screening value in one shallow upgradient well, and the consultant concluded the pattern did not originate at the landfill.
- The creek-edge location creates a physical risk to the cover during floods and severe rain. It does not establish that all downstream sediment, PFAS, or other creek pollution came from Moench.
Response
Cleanup and controls
- A 24-inch low-permeability soil barrier and 12 inches of vegetated topsoil isolate remaining waste. Settlement, vegetation, drainage, access roads, vents, fences, monitoring wells, and creek banks receive regular inspection and repair.
- The environmental easement limits the land to approved commercial, industrial, or passive-recreational use, restricts groundwater use, and requires agency approval and an excavation plan for disturbance of controlled material.
- Groundwater monitoring and bank-seep observations test whether constituents are moving beyond the containment system. Annual reports certify the institutional and engineering controls rather than assuming an old cap remains protective forever.
- Creek-bank erosion controls use anchored geomembrane and riprap to keep floodwater from cutting into the landfill cover. Their condition is a central protectiveness measure as intense storms and overtopping remain foreseeable.
Then and now
The site today
DEC classifies Moench Tanning as Class 4: properly closed but requiring continuing site management. The landfill can participate in creekfront reuse planning only if the cover, erosion protection, groundwater restriction, monitoring network, and excavation controls remain intact.
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.
Gowanda animal-products and waste network
Glue production, leather tanning, creek-edge disposal, and the transport of glue waste to Markhams form a connected industrial history. Each cleanup retains its own official boundary and remedy.
The Gowanda plant generated animal-glue waste and managed an on-site sludge-disposal area.
Leather tannery and landfillMoench TanningThe neighboring tannery adds a separate century-scale leather-waste and creek-management history.
Off-site disposal propertyPeter Cooper–Markhams Superfund SiteMarkhams received waste transported from the Peter Cooper operation in Gowanda and is managed as a separate Superfund site.