The state Department of Environmental Conservation and the Town of Oyster Bay are in a war of words over who is responsible for delays in the clean up of toxic waste at Bethpage State Park.
Sean Mahar, interim commissioner for the Department of Environmental Conservation, has charged that the Town of Oyster Bay is obstructing the clean up.
“To be clear, if the Town were to take actions that would constitute substantial interference with the remedial program at the Park, that would constitute a violation of the state’s environmental laws,” he said in a letter to the town.
The DEC has been overseeing the park’s cleanup since its March 2013 Record of Decision led to Northrop Grumman’s remediation of the space.
In a letter responding to Mahar, Oyster Bay Town Supervisor Joseph Saladino denied that the town was delaying the clean up and said the DEC was misrepresenting the town’s position.
“While the Town appreciates the DEC’s apparent increased attention to the Park cleanup, we are disappointed that the DEC has misrepresented certain facts that are the basis of the Town’s position on the cleanup,” Saladino said.
Grumman, Northrop Grumman’s predecessor, used the park as a chemical waste dumping site before donating the grounds to the Town of Oyster Bay in the 1960s. Parts of the park have been closed to the public since the early 2000s after toxic leaks were discovered.
The successor company is now responsible for the site’s cleanup, which has faced some unexpected delays.
Phase one of the cleanup began in August 2020 and concluded in May 2022. During the drilling that would start phase two, 22 chemical drums were found under the park, which continued to delay cleanup efforts until all were removed.
Now, alongside natural or unforeseen delays of the project, the DEC is also accusing the Town of Oyster Bay of delaying efforts to continue the park cleanup.
“Despite DEC’s numerous attempts to schedule discussions between the parties on the PCB excavation, the Town has not agreed to meet with Northrop Grumman,” Mahar said. “The clear impasse in negotiations is the result of the Town refusing to meet with the parties to engage in a meaningful discussion.”
The Sept. 26 letter outlines several instances of the Town allegedly obstructing these efforts, including the Town’s requests for “cleanup actions that are well beyond what is necessary to protect public health and environment in a public park and inconsistent with cleanups conducted in every other community space.”
“Most recently, on Aug. 8, 2024, DEC attempted to schedule a meeting with the Town, Northrop Grumman, and EPA to discuss outstanding data necessary to refine a PCB-contaminated soil removal application. As of the date of this letter [Sept. 26], the Town has not responded to that request to meet,” the letter stated.
“To be clear, DEC and the Town are aligned on the necessity for this data gap analysis. However, to finalize that plan, the Town, Northrop Grumman, EPA, and DEC need to agree on where, and to what depth, further soil sampling will be performed,” Mahar’s letter continued.
To speed up progress in the Park and remove obstacles to the cleanup’s progress, the letter stated, the Town of Oyster Bay was asked to work toward a “mutually agreeable solution.”
But Mahar suggested that in an Aug. 21 letter, the Town rejected Northrop Grumman’s work plan to investigate subsurface anomalies and the proposal to place soil excavated during test pitting back into the excavations, according to the letter.
“The next step in the pilot study is to directly investigate a series of subsurface anomalies,” Mahar said. “The effectiveness of the entire Park-wide geophysical investigation is potentially compromised due to the Town’s refusal to allow the pilot study to advance.”
“By working together, we can successfully address a significant source area of the Navy-Northrop Grumman groundwater plume and return the Park to the community,” Mahar concluded. “Reaching this goal depends on the Town negotiating in earnest, and DEC remains committed to advancing this meeting and respectfully requests the Town meet with the parties, resolve these issues, and avoid delaying this cleanup.”
Saladino said the the DEC’s Record of Decision for the cleanup was issued without the required review and approval of the PCB cleanup levels by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
“The Town has been clear that it will not accept the ROD cleanup levels because they were not approved by the EPA and because they would allow Northrop Grumman to leave behind its toxic waste in an unlined landfill,” he said.
“The Town has also been clear that all contaminated soil must be excavated and removed from the Park to meet unrestricted use standards, not some lesser cleanup level that leaves the Town responsible for managing Northrop Grumman’s toxic legacy forever while also leaving the uncertainty of these legacy chemicals for generations to come,” he continued.
Contrary to the DEC’s claim, Saladino’ said, the “Town fully supports the pilot test excavation of the GPR anomalies identified in the ballfield.
“However,” he added, “the Town does not support the reburial of the excavated soil, which is already known to be contaminated with PCBs, VOCs and hazardous metals. It is wrong to state that the Town is delaying the investigation of the ballfield when we insist that contaminated soil excavated by Northrop Grumman be disposed of properly off-site and not re-buried.”
“The Town has been and remains willing to work with DEC and Northrop Grumman on the complete and timely cleanup of Bethpage Community Park and the contaminated toxic soils placed there by Northrop Grumman,” Saladino concluded.
Brian Nevin, public information officer for the Town of Oyster Bay, said on Sept. 3, town officials met with DEC officials “to express outrage over their decades-long failure to hold Grumman accountable to a strict timetable for a full cleanup of Bethpage Community Park,” he said.
Nevin said the DEC is why this cleanup has faced so much delay.
“It should not have come to this as the DEC should have already held Grumman accountable for a specific timeline for progress.”
“The DEC should have engaged the EPA during the development of the ROD, not 10+ years after the fact…and only after the Town of Oyster Bay brought this issue to the public domain,” he said. “Because the DEC failed to hold Grumman accountable for decades, the Town of Oyster Bay was forced to file a lawsuit against Grumman and threatened to revoke their access to the site – one of our few leverages – should progress not be made by specific dates.”
“The Town has been very clear that its goals are a full cleanup of all contaminated soils to unrestricted use standards,” Nevin added.
Ongoing efforts to continue the cleanup at Bethpage State Park remain to be seen while the DEC and Town dispute over proper procedure going forward.
