Isophoric News · Tuesday, October 27, 2026
Oswego's public works commissioner told a committee the city is under an EPA consent order over an oil spill plan; the written minutes do not use those words
At a public committee meeting on April 20, the commissioner of Public Works and Parks and Recreation told the Common Council's Administrative Services Committee that the city is "currently under consent order from EPA" to update its spill prevention plan for the Department of Public Works. The commissioner, Craig Rebeor, said the city was hit with "a surprise inspection from the EPA" about a year earlier and was found not to be in compliance with its Spill Prevention, Control and Countermeasure plan, known as an SPCC plan, which covers aboveground petroleum tanks of 55 gallons or more. The written minutes of the same item say the plan, originally developed around 2008, "has been flagged by the EPA for update and resubmission." They do not contain the words consent order or surprise inspection.
The commissioner made the statement himself, on a recording the city posted. Minutes are a summary, not a transcript, and New York's Open Meetings Law requires them to record motions, proposals, resolutions and the vote, so leaving out narrative detail is lawful and ordinary. These minutes are not bare. They give a full paragraph to the discussion, including who asked what, and the point of this report is not that they are too short but that they carry the substance of the item without the phrase the commissioner used. The recording is what shows the difference, and it was obtained by the newsroom; we have not seen the order itself.
The federal Environmental Protection Agency's public enforcement database, Enforcement and Compliance History Online, records no EPA inspection of the City of Oswego's DPW garage at 100 Mitchell St. and no enforcement action against it, formal or informal, in the past five years, according to its facility report, whose data the report shows as current as of Oct. 24. The only inspection it holds is a New York State inspection on Nov. 14, 2025, under the federal hazardous waste law, which found one violation concerning the labelling of used-oil containers and tanks and another concerning whether used-oil tank systems complied with the state's petroleum bulk storage rules; the report shows both determined on Nov. 14 and back in compliance on Dec. 18, 2025. It has no Clean Water Act record for the facility. Spill prevention plans fall under the Clean Water Act, and such matters are not always carried in that database, so the absence of an order there does not show that none exists. Isophoric News asked the city on Oct. 23 whether the order exists, is still in effect and may be seen, and whether the marina tank now has an approved plan; the mayor replied on Oct. 26, directing the newsroom to file a request under the Freedom of Information Law to obtain the information requested, and the questions were not answered.
The commissioner described the plan's history in the same way, plainly. According to the recording, the DPW's plan had not been updated since 2008 and is supposed to be updated every year, which was "three years before I started management," he said, adding "I had no knowledge." He said the updated policy was complete and with the EPA for review, that the city expected it back "any time now," and that it would be put in place once approved. The lapse he described began in 2008, well before the current mayor's term, which started in January 2024; the inspection he dated to about a year before the April 2026 meeting would fall in that term, by his account. Among the DPW's tanks he listed hydraulic oil, motor oil, diesel fuel and gasoline.
The item before the committee was an $8,300 contract amendment. The commissioner asked for authorization for the mayor to sign Amendment No. 1 with GHD Consulting Services, Inc., the city's engineering consultant, to write an SPCC plan for the marina's fuel tank, and for the City Chamberlain to move $8,300 into the marinas and docks contracted services account. He said the marina tank was installed in 2018 and that "there is no SPCC plan for that tank," and that he and the former city engineer, Jeffrey Hinderliter, had agreed the city should be proactive and include it now. The fuel is marine grade, non ethanol, he said. If a delivery truck sprang a leak, he said, the question is what the policy is, and what the city has to do to keep the fuel from reaching the lake.
A councillor asked whether the city had a plan. The commissioner said it has a plan that is not written down, and that in the EPA's world a policy has to be written. Another councillor asked whether the work could be done in house; the commissioner said the consultant's recommendation, made while Hinderliter was engineer, was that it could not, and that he could not speak for the interim engineer on whether the city could take it on. The committee approved the request 4-0-1, according to the minutes, and it went to the full Council as Resolution 137 on the April 27 agenda. The record we hold does not show what the Council did with it, and this report does not say it passed.
The city is separately a party to a Clean Water Act consent decree over sewer overflows, brought by the United States and the State of New York and entered by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York on Aug. 5, 2010, a different matter from the spill-prevention plan at the public works garage. The newsroom could not establish from the public record whether that decree remains in effect. Isophoric News asked the Environmental Protection Agency on Oct. 26 whether the decree remains in effect; the agency's Region 2 press office acknowledged the inquiry and said EPA would respond. At a February committee meeting, according to the minutes, the mayor said past sewer rate reductions were possible partly because of grant funding and completed consent decree work, and that rising operating costs now call for careful planning. The newsroom has not asked the city about the decree.
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Documents
- Administrative Services Committee agenda, April 20, 2026 Download · Original
- Administrative Services Committee minutes, April 20, 2026 Download · Original
- Consent Decree, United States of America and State of New York v. City of Oswego, No. 5:10-cv-00554, Document 8, signed and entered August 5, 2010 (court filing, archive copy) Download · Original
- Common Council agenda, April 27, 2026 Download · Original