N.Y. Town Residents Worry About Landfill Leachate Impacting Private Wells

"This is stuff leaking out of the landfill," Krahforst said. "This is not PFOA, per se, that orange stuff. The PFOA is in the water; they're saying the brown orange coloring can be organic material breaking down. If it's organic, it's microbes, bacteria, algae, whatever. If not it's whatever the chemicals are. This is what has 4,200 ppt in it."

Krahforst says the DEC told him both Petersburgh and Berlin were responsible for maintaining the landfill when they mandated its closure in the 1990s. But first, it had to be filled.

According to documents dug up by Town Clerk Deidra Michaels, the town contracted "Energy Answers" to allow trucks to come in and dump, and was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars.

"I've talked to past supervisors who were here during the whole thing, but the records aren't there," Michaels said. "We were never given any records of what was being brought in."