The former Northrop Grumman site in Bethpage, Long Island has long been a focal point of environmental concerns due to its history with chemical waste.
Last week, the discovery of multiple 55-gallon chemical drums at Bethpage Community Park as part of a multi-year cleanup plan located on the former industrial site, has brought the issue to the fore once again and raised alarms.
The drums, found encased in concrete, were unearthed during routine drilling and are believed to contain cleaning solvents and petroleum. The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has been overseeing the cleanup and states that there is no immediate threat to public health. However, the residents of this community and the surrounding area are not easily reassured by politicians who have failed to resolve the issue over the past decades. They are demanding a full soil excavation.
The community, which has faced cancer concerns linked to past industrial activities, is advocating for a more expedited cleanup process.
“We discovered Grumman’s graveyard for contamination,” Oyster Bay Supervisor Joseph Saladino told the New York Post. “These drums were encased in concrete coffins, which proves to us that they knew they contained very dangerous content.”
Residents of Bethpage have repeatedly argued that cancer is more prevalent there than in surrounding areas. The town has had to contend with contamination caused by Northrop Grumman’s hazardous waste dumping that led to a 6-square-mile underground toxic plume whose spread was an alarming 4 miles long, 2 miles wide and 900 feet deep.
The drums were discovered beneath the 18-acre park’s abandoned baseball field, which has been closed for 20 years over soil contamination concerns. The park sits on a tract of land used by the company as its chemical dumping ground from the 1940s to the 1960s before it was donated to the town in 1962.
At least one of the unearthed drums, found at a depth of 4 feet, was punctured and some of them contained flammable chemicals, Saladino said.
Joseph Saladino has called on the DEC to order a full cleanup of the park by removing all the soil and hauling it off Long Island. He says taxpayers have previously paid $20 million to clean the site so residents could use the park’s skating rink.
The supervisor filed a lawsuit against Northrop Grumman — the successor of Grumman Aerospace — a decade ago to be reimbursed for the costs. A new suit was filed in December calling for Grumman to remove all contaminated soil.
Saladino is exasperated, “I’ve had it. I’ve had it. I’ve been working on this for over 20 years as a New York state Assembly member and now as the supervisor of the fourth-largest town in America and I’m not going to sit by idly,” he said.
Northrop Grumman said it is working with the DEC to address the situation.
A number of personal injury and class-action lawsuits have been filed against Grumman, alleging the company contributed to illnesses — including cancer over the years.
The Cornett family, of Bethpage, filed a $300 million lawsuit against Grumman after three out four of them were diagnosed with cancer within just 20 months between 2015 and 2017.
