THOMPSON — During the last week in June, workers at the Thompson Wastewater treatment plant found a toxic load of biocides that entered into the system and killed off all the bacteria used to help break down sludge at the treatment plant.

As required, the Thompson Department of Water and Sewer reported the incident to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC).

In February, a similar incident happened at the wastewater treatment plant, and after much investigation, Thompson could not find the source of the toxic dump.

This time in June, after another internal investigation, it was found that Resorts World Catskills Casino drained their cold water cooling lines into the town's sewer system. The water that was drained into the system contains biocides, pesticides, and anti-corrosion chemicals.

“This is a direct violation of our code,” said Michael Messenger, superintendent of the Town of Thompson Water and Sewer Department.

“It was a super high dose [of the chemicals], and it just killed everything,” Messenger added.

The biocides used in the cooling tower help to prevent the buildup of bacteria in the system that can cause Legionnaires Disease to spread and is used in large complexes like the Resorts World Catskills Casino.

According to Messenger, the casino uses about 40,000 gallons of domestic water just for the cooling towers. About 80 percent of that water evaporates into the air.

The rest of the water, about 8,000 gallons, goes into the town's sewer system on a daily basis, which according to Messenger, does not adversely affect the plant.

According to Messenger, the casino might have done a flush of their water system for the soft opening in February. The casino at that time was not fully operational and as the additional floors were opened later in the year another flush of the 50,000-gallon cooling system was needed to clean out sediments.

When Messenger recently met with the casino's facilities manager and the company that handles the biocides, he noticed on the label of the chemical container that it explicitly stated, not to dump the chemicals into a town's sewer system.

The town is now “on notice” by the DEC to hire an engineer by August 1 to start creating plans for a future Industrial Treatment Plant that will have to be built to deal with the water coming from the casino.

“We are not treating this as a malicious event, and there should be no lasting impact on the environment,” said Town of Thompson Supervisor Bill Rieber Jr. “The property owner [Resorts World Catskills] will be responsible for all costs associated with this event, and we will be engaging an engineering firm to expedite a plan and establish protocols for managing any potential unwarranted flows into our plant. I have briefed Resorts World management, and they have given every indication of being cooperative.”

The DEC can potentially fine the town $3,750 a day for the toxic dump as long as the biocides chemical remain in the system.

Since the dump, it has been at least 22 days since the toxic load entered into the system, and according to Messenger, the poisonous chemicals remain in the system of the wastewater treatment plant.

In the meantime, Messenger and the Water and Sewer Department have taken steps to get the plant running efficiently.

“We reseeded the plant with over 25,000 gallons from neighboring activated sludge wastewater treatment plants,” said Messenger.

The town is now looking to issue violations to Resorts World Catskill Casino for the toxic dump that happened in late June.

“Resorts World Catskills is in close communication with the Town of Thompson on this matter and expects any issues to be resolved shortly,” Charles Degliomini, Executive Vice President for Resorts World Catskills, said.