Foul Point Lookout odors cause a stir

Linda Mulvey, a longtime Point Lookout resident who lives on Mineola Avenue, said she has always cherished her home, which boasts views of Jones Inlet.

Now, Mulvey said, all she sees from her deck are large, decaying heaps of emerald-colored seaweed that emit a potent odor of rotten eggs. The seaweed, she said, is often 3 feet deep.

“This has been going on for 10 years with the seaweed,” said Mulvey, explaining that the stench has grown worse this year and that residents are concerned about the possible health effects. “The smell was so overwhelming [this summer].”

Since June, Point Lookout residents like Mulvey have become more vocal about the seaweed and the smell, calling on local officials to address the issue. It took on added urgency over the summer, when many reported symptoms such as dizziness, nausea, vomiting and persistent coughs.

The odor emanating from the seaweed has been identified as hydrogen sulfide, and it can be smelled inside homes and businesses as well as outside, according to State Assemblyman Harvey Weisenberg, a Democrat from Long Beach, who said that the volume of seaweed has increased in the northeastern stretch of the hamlet over the past 10 to 15 years.

“...[This] is a health and safety risk to you, your children and everyone who resides down here,” Weisenberg told a crowd of more than 100 at a heated town hall meeting on Dec. 14 at the Bishop Molloy Recreation Center, which included local officials and representatives of the state Department of Environmental Conservation and the Nassau County Department of Health.

Many residents demanded answers about the ubiquitous odor. In early October, they were told, the health department tested the area and detected levels of hydrogen sulfide of up to 2.5 parts per million on top of the seaweed. Officials explained that because the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s recommended limit of exposure is 10 parts per million, no formal action was taken.

John Jacobs, director of the department’s Bureau of Environmental Sanitation, explained that the gas can cause a range of symptoms, but he characterized them as “short term.” “In this particular instance, we did use the OSHA standard,” Jacobs told residents. “What that standard says is that you can be exposed to a certain level for eight hours a day … and not expect to have any health impacts.”

But residents as well as environmentalists are greatly concerned about the potential health hazards that have affected local waterways in recent years, including this year’s illegal sewage discharge from the Bay Park Sewage Treatment Plant in East Rockaway.

After the meeting, local environmentalist Morris Kramer said he believes there is a connection between the Point Lookout odor and the sewage treatment plant. Within three or four years after the Bay Park Plant became operational in the early 1960s, Kramer explained, most of what is known as the West Bay was closed to shell fishing because the plant overloaded it with nutrients such as nitrogen.

According to Kramer, the plant has continued to release these nutrients, which have ended up at the bottom of the bay. The nitrogen, he said, contributes to the growth of seaweed, which, as it decays, releases hydrogen sulfide, creating the odor.

“The seaweed has become so prolific that it keeps growing,” said Kramer. “The seaweed has become the dominant life in the West Bay, Middle Bay and possibly the East Bay.”

The West Bay, Kramer explained, stretches from the Atlantic Beach Bridge to the Long Beach LIRR trestle, the Middle Bay from the trestle to the Loop Parkway, and the East Bay from the Loop to the Wantagh Parkway bridge.

He said that the severe storm that rocked the South Shore in March eroded the sand in the northeast corner of Point Lookout. Seaweed washed in, piling 5 to 6 feet high.

Depending on exposure levels, Kramer said, hydrogen sulfide can cause nervous system failure as well as chemical changes in the brain.

At the meeting, residents demanded that officials correct the problem immediately, and stressed that they are tired of waiting for a solution. “That beach was pristine,” said resident Mary Olotka. “To look at it now, it’s a disgrace. My daughters wake up with headaches. My husband and my neighbor have had a chronic cough.”

Olotka said that her mother was recently taken to a local hospital after she was sickened by the fumes. “My mother just got out of the hospital,” she said. “They asked me, ‘Is she a smoker?’ She’s on oxygen now permanently. I want a solution to this problem, permanently.”

Another resident, Sandy Abbe, called the situation disgraceful, and said officials should have informed residents about the matter earlier. “I think it’s disgusting,” Abbe said after the meeting. “Let the people of Point Lookout know, at least.”

Weisenberg said that the DEC has been working with the Town of Hempstead and health department officials in an effort to remove the seaweed and explore options to prevent future accumulations. The town has been unable to take action to alleviate the seaweed because it must provide additional information to the DEC to have an existing dredging permit amended, explained Ron Masters, the town’s commissioner of conservation and waterways.

The existing permit allows sand to be deposited in a specific area to address Point Lookout’s erosion issues. Now, said Masters, the town is looking to amend that permit in order to deposit sand where the seaweed is piling up. The Town and the DEC are in the process of settling the permit issue.

Weisenberg said he has called on the state Department of Health to conduct tests to determine the level of threat to residents’ health, to help inform residents about how to protect themselves and to help find a permanent solution. In early August, he secured $600,000 in federal funding for an overall study of pollution in the Western Bays — the West, Middle and East bays — and said he believes the study will “eventually show a relationship” between the growth of seaweed and the continued violations at the Bay Park Sewage Treatment Plant.

Many residents said that the odor has become a serious health and quality-of-life issue. “This summer we had to put Turkish towels over our heads because the smell was so putrid,” said resident Dana Conklin, who described the area of seaweed as “a toxic wasteland.”

Conklin added that she was concerned about the potential long-term health effects. “Breathing this gas in all the time can’t be good for you,” she said.