This one is at 10 Chestnut St., the former home of Smith Ford. The center of the lot lies about 765 feet from Otsego Lake, Cooperstown’s reservoir, according to Marybeth Vargha, Otsego County’s geographical information specialist.

The former Smith Ford property is about a block away from the former Mobil gas station, where in April 2006, the DEC closed the books on the cleanup of a large spill, although the cleanup did not meet state standards.

Earlier this month, DEC officials said the former Mobil site did not pose a threat to people and would degrade naturally over time, even though it tested hundreds of times above standards for certain substances.

This week, DEC spokesman Rick Georgeson said the agency also believes pollution found 10 to 15 feet below the ground at the former Smith Ford site is not dangerous.

``No one there is drinking the ground water,’’ he noted.

The .31-acre lot was owned by the Harry W. Smith Real Estate Corp. from 1957 until April 7, 1988, when it was sold to Cooperstown Cards Inc. for $225,000, according to the county’s Office of Real Property Tax Services.

Larry Fritsch, who owned the card firm, said Friday that shortly after he bought the property, he had four gasoline tanks taken out of the ground.

``There were three in the front of the building and one in the back,’’ he said. ``They were empty, and I figured they must have been pumped out.’’

In the late 1980s, Fritsch had the building remodeled as a baseball-card museum, which operated for a few years.

Then about three years ago, when he was marketing the property, a prospective buyer asked that the soil be tested before going through with the deal.

According to DEC records, two monitoring wells were installed on the lot, and on May 26, 2004, the DEC was called by Jennifer Murray of Lamont Engineers in Cobleskill.

``When drilling in the soil, came upon some contaminated soil exhibiting petroleum odor and sheen. Variable between 10 feet and 15 feet. Ground water was observed between 12 and 14 feet,’’ Murray told the DEC, the record states.

Subsequent tests showed that 150 parts per billion, or 30 times the state standard, of trimethylbenzene were present in one well, and 120 parts per billion, or 24 times the state standard, were found in the other well, Georgeson said Friday.

Long-term exposure to solvents containing this substance may cause ``nervousness, tension, and bronchitis,’’ according to the Environmental Protection Agency’s website.

Also, 31 parts per billion of ethylbenzene, or six times the state standard, were found in one well, Georgeson said. This substance, found in gasoline and other products, ``(has) shown effects on the nervous system, liver, kidneys, and eyes’’ of animals breathing it, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Georgeson said contamination here is limited compared with many sites, and the numbers were not alarming. The site was not cleaned up, additional monitoring wells were not installed, and the books were closed May 31, 2005.

Fritsch said the prospective buyer pulled out of the deal.

``It ended up costing me $3,000,’’ he said.

Seven months later, Fritsch sold the property to First Street Properties, operated by Jay Bernhardt of Richfield Springs, for $500,000.

Bernhardt, who would like to build condominiums there, said he didn’t know the soil and ground water were polluted.

``I saw the DEC closed the site, so to me that says the state must think it’s not a problem,’’ he said.

Others think there may be a problem.

On Friday, Win McIntyre, Cooperstown’s watershed consultant, said, ``I think it’s bad news. No one knows where the plume of that spill is or how much was spilled, but we do know it’s close to the lake.’’

McIntrye, who has called for the state to restart the cleanup at the former Mobil station, added that the village of Cooperstown tests its drinking water rigorously and has not found dangerous levels of anything.

``It could be going into the lake and be so diluted it’s not detectable,’’ he said. ``At this point, we don’t know.’’

Walter Hang, who operates Toxics Targeting of Ithaca, a firm that monitors spills from official records, said the limited facts in this case do not seem to add up.

``When someone sees a sheen and smells petroleum in the soil and the ground water, that’s typically parts per million, not parts per billion,’’ he said. ``Here, we know it was in the ground water, we know it was near the lake, and yet the DEC didn’t bother to delineate the full extent of the spill.

``Why do they have a standard if they go around closing sites that don’t meet the standard?’’ he asked.

Georgeson said the DEC considers the likely impact of contamination on people when electing to close cases, and because no one in the area was drinking the ground water, it was not considered a crucial site to clean up.

Late Friday, Edward Smith, owner of Smith Ford, said he was not aware pollution had been found at 10 Chestnut St.

``The property was clean when we sold it,’’ he said.

Smith said Cooperstown is home to many underground gasoline tanks.

Last week, Cooperstown Mayor Carol Waller said the village has asked its attorney, John Lambert, and a consultant, Douglas Zamelis, to investigate pollution at 29 Chestnut St. On Friday, she said they have also been asked to investigate 10 Chestnut St.

``That’s the other one we’re looking into,’’ she said.