By Hector Flores
Apparently, Hess' inspection of the station's gas tanks revealed no cracks or leaks. The company plans to place additional monitoring wells around the gas station, at the intersection of Merrick Road and St. Marks Avenue, and neighboring homes to determine the extent of the soil and groundwater contamination.
Despite the company representatives' reassuring words, residents were not pleased with the outcome of the meeting and some are considering legal action. The meeting was one part of the agenda of a town hall meeting hosted by Nassau County Legislature David Denenberg (D-Merrick) at the Bellmore Library. Although various issues were tackled, the Hess station's continuing problems were the evening's major topic of discussion.
Denenberg explained that the station is currently undergoing a cleanup of a 1988 spill, pumping out groundwater, treating it and returning it to the earth. Gasoline vapors are also being sucked from the ground, treated and released, he said.
The station has also installed monitoring wells to keep tabs on the petroleum in the soil and groundwater. Officials have been monitoring the spill since 1991, but in 2002 there was a drastic spike in petroleum readings that some believe could only mean a new spill.
"Sometime in 1988 there was a spill," Denenberg said. "And in 1991 there were enough wells drilled on the property of the Hess station and the [nearby] Farrel home to begin monitoring the 1988 spill."
He went on to note that periodically over the 10-year monitoring period, there were various levels of petroleum compounds BTEX (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene) and MTBE (methyl teritiary butyl ether).
"[The] latest readings, taken in June 2002, were just too high considering the site is going through a cleanup," Denenberg said. "That tells me there is a new leak or that the site is not being cleaned up."
Denenberg explained that the monitoring wells measure petroleum spills in parts per billion (ppb) -- for illustrative purposes, the contents of a shot glass compared with the contents of a thousand railroad cars is 1 ppb.
He also said that monitor-well readings fluctuate from time to time depending on their water levels. What had alarmed him was that in 1992, the wells had evidence of dissolved petroleum, but in June 2002 one of the wells had clearly visible gasoline floating on the water.
Dawn Coughlin, Hess' manager of refining and marketing remediation, confirmed that there had been a remarkable increase in levels of petroleum at the site.
An inspection of the station's gas tanks revealed no faults, so it was determined that the current pump-and-treat system used for the cleanup was not sufficient. It was shut down and is being replaced by an improved model that, according to the company, will be able to deal with new levels of petroleum.
Coughlin also said that Hess has contracted EnviroTrac to collect water and soil samples at the gas station and in the surrounding area to determine the cause of the new higher readings. After the readings are examined, a new cleanup program will be designed for the area.
Paul Smith, division manager for Hess, also noted that, to date, there has been no determination of the cause of the 1988 leak, but that the removed gas tanks showed no evidence of cracks. "We will never know the answer to the 1988 leak," he said. "With all the information I was able to obtain from our files and the [Department of Environmenta Conservation's], the cause of the spill remains unknown."
The 1988 leak of contamination was found by chance when the Hess gas station was being excavated. "The spill was found during excavation work done around the station, which showed visible contamination," Coughlin said.
"We are left with more questions than answers," said Denenberg. "How bad was the problem in 1988? Why was the cleanup so slow? and What happened in 2002 and what are we going to do to clean it up and prevent it from moving to the nearby bay?"
Jeff Gold, an attorney and a Bellmore resident, was also displeased with the meeting. "We are not satisfied," he said. "I can't believe that it has taken Hess a year and a half to begin investigating the spill site. They kept this too quiet, and we have to know the health risks these neighbors have been subjected to. They are just not a good cooperative neighbor."
Gold is in talks with the Farrel family, whose home is right behind the gas station. They are considering filing a lawsuit against the Hess station in order to be compensated for the possible loss of value to their historic home.
Marie Palazzola, the Farrels' next-door neighbor, said, "This is very upsetting. There is nothing we can say because we don't have enough information. All I know is that my husband has not been feeling well for some time, and this cleanup is taking far too long, 15 years."
