By:Jeff Lipton
The Department of Environmental Conservation will move ahead with the cleanup of a toxic waste site on Peninsula Boulevard in Hewlett, even though money in a Superfund project used to clean up waste sites around the state has dried up, officials said.
The Hewlett site, at 1274 Peninsula Blvd., where Grove Dry Cleaners formerly operated, is one of the sites listed as posing a "significant [health] threat to the public and the environment."
The state DEC said it has run out of funds to investigate or clean up about 800 contaminated sites across the state because the state Superfund program went broke April 1, but the lack of funds will not impact the Hewlett site. "The money has been collected to complete this project," said DEC spokesperson Peter Constantakes. "This project is not in jeopardy."
An on-site investigation of the Peninsula Boulevard location is complete and an off-site probe to determine the extent of the migration of the toxic waste will be finished in about a month, said Constantakes.
The site is considered an inactive hazardous waste site because the source of the waste has come to a halt, he said. "We want to see if it has migrated off-site, and if so, how far it has gone," Constantakes added.
State officials point out that although shallow on-site groundwater is contaminated with "volatile organic compounds," public drinking water is available to all area residents, so exposures to contaminated groundwater are not expected. The area behind the site where the contaminated drywell is located is completely paved, so direct contact with contaminated soil is not possible, the DEC said. "Right now it seems to be a pretty well-contained site," Constantakes said.
The water body nearest to the site is Motts Creek, about 2,500 feet northwest of the site.
As part of his 2001-02 budget, Gov. Pataki introduced a Superfund Reform proposal that finances on an annual pay-as-you-go basis the Hazardous Waste Site Remedial Program, known as Superfund, the Oil Spill Responsive and Prevention Program and the state's Voluntary Clean Up Program. The legislation would maintain strict environmental and public health standards while requiring polluters to pay 100 percent of the cleanup costs and imposing strict penalties if they refuse.
In addition, the measure would expand the types of sites eligible for cleanup and provide liability relief and financial incentives to those who clean up sites they did not contaminate, which would encourage greater private investment, in place of state funding, in contaminated sites, leading to faster cleanups and more of them.
"This will allow positive action to help clean up our communities, and it needs to be approved," said Nicholas J. Pirro, president of the New York State Association of Counties, one of three large municipal organizations calling on state lawmakers to pass Pataki's legislation.
The New York Conference of Mayors and Municipal Officials and the Association of the Towns of the State of New York all joined DEC Commissioner Erin M. Crotty on Wednesday, April 4, in urging passage of the legislation.
The state's Superfund program has been financed through the 1986 Environmental Quality Bond Act, which has led to more than 800 sites being cleaned up or receiving remediation funding. The last of the funds were used up on March 31, leaving the state unable to start or complete cleanups at hundreds of sites known or suspected of being contaminated.
At the Hewlett site, soil samples were first collected Feb. 25, 1991, from the bottom of an on-site drywell, which showed contamination by Tetrachloroethylene, or PCE, and the owners were cited on March 14 that year by the Nassau County Department of Health for discharging hazardous wastes
into a drywell via a storm drain at the rear of the building, according to the DEC. Groundwater samples taken on Sept. 25, 1991 also showed signs of PCE contamination, and soil sample results from the drywell in the rear of the building showed illegal discharge of PCE.
State officials said that since the groundwater contamination is within a sole-source aquifer, "the site poses a significant threat to the public and the environment."
The state signed a Remedial Investigation /Feasibility Study consent order in March 1995. Three monitoring wells were installed to determine the extent of the groundwater contamination, officials said, and groundwater contamination was still present. The property owners performed a groundwater interim remedial measure for the source area in February 1999, diminishing the groundwater contamination at the source, but not completing it, state officials said.
The DEC requested that the owners determine the extent of the contamination, but the owners refused and the state began a focused Remedial Investigation/ Feasibility Study in March 2000. Further tests were necessary to determine the extent of the impact on the site. Under the Superfund project, the state tries to identify who is the potentially responsible party for the cleanup. If that is contested, the Superfund money is then used to clean up the site and the DEC and attorney general will take action to retrieve the money.
