By Jeff Lipton
The contamination was previously identified on-site during preliminary investigations, and the state wants to determine the extent and nature of the contamination during upcoming field work. Below-surface investigations of soil and groundwater quality will be conducted at the Inwood substation for five to seven days during the late summer and for the same length of time during the early fall for the Rockville Centre and Valley Stream substations.
The substation in Inwood is actually called the Far Rockaway substation and is located near the Nassau Expressway (Route 878) off Doughty Boulevard and Redfern Avenue. The Rockville Centre substation is located off Sunrise Highway and North Long Beach Road, and the Valley Stream substation is on the south side of Sunrise Highway and west of Rockaway Avenue.
The state Department of Health, the LIRR and its consultant have helped the DEC develop a work plan, which will be carried out by the LIRR, under the provisions of the DEC's voluntary cleanup program. The work will also include an associated site-specific health and safety plan.
"What had happened is that some rectifiers had some mercury in them," said DEC spokesman Bill Fonda, who added that rectifiers convert the current supplied by Long Island Power Authority to the form of power that the LIRR uses.
Fonda said there is little fear of exposure of mercury to the public since the public has no access to the substations, which are small brick buildings used by the LIRR. "They are usually fenced in buildings that are locked," said Fonda.
He said the investigators will go into the soil with a geo-probe, a pipe inserted below ground, to take soil and groundwater samples. In addition, they will install wells to determine if there's any groundwater contamination.
The state will investigate the level of contamination in the first four feet below the soil surface, Fonda said. He added that initial tests determined some mercury contamination in the doorways and pathways of the substation, but failed to find any mercury contamination in the groundwater.
The on-site investigators will write a report on their findings and
suggest a work plan on how the LIRR will propose to clean up the site. The findings will be presented to the public, which then has 30 days to comment on the proposed soil cleanup. "This is probably going to be a soil removal type of operation," Fonda said.
Separate reports detailing the findings will be produced at the end of the investigation and the DEC will determine if remediation of the sites is necessary. The documents for the Inwood substation will be on hand at the Peninsula Public Library, at 280 Central Ave. in Lawrence. Those for the Rockville Centre site will be available at the Rockville Centre Public Library, at 221 North Village Ave., and the one for Valley Stream will be available at the public library at 60 Verona Place.
In November 2001 the DEC and LIRR signed a voluntary cleanup agreement to conduct detailed environmental investigations at 17 LIRR substations in Suffolk, Nassau and Queens. The LIRR completed investigation work plans in June 2005, for all LIRR substations. Each substation consists of a single-story brick building next to a fenced transformer yard. The Inwood substation consists of a 625-square-foot, one-story brick building with an adjacent 2,100-square-foot transformer yard. The Rockville Centre substation consists of a 1,740-square-foot, one-story brick building with an adjacent 2,160 square foot transformer yard and the Valley Steam substation consists of a 625-square-foot, one-story brick building with an adjacent 2,250-square-foot transformer yard.
The LIRR built, owned and operated the substations from the early 1930s. Until the 1980s, the substations housed mercury rectifiers, devices used to power LIRR locomotives and electric passenger car fleets. During the 1980s, the mercury rectifiers were removed from the substations and replaced with non-mercury containing solid state equipment. Between April 3 and May 12, 2000, the LIRR conducted Interim Remedial Measures (IRM) at the substations, excavating and properly disposing of mercury contaminated soil found onsite. The excavated areas were backfilled with stone. Soil samples collected from the bottom of the excavated areas at the substations showed that mercury remained and exceeded soil cleanup objectives, state officials said.
IRM activities were not conducted at the Rockville Centre substation.
Comments about this story? Jlipton@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 204.
