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Plan to fight the plume
] EPA expects agreement next month on cleanup
BY EMILY C. DOOLEY
emily.dooley@newsday.com
Northrop Grumman and the
state Department of Environmental Conservation are one
step closer to agreeing to a decades-old cleanup plan for part
of a Bethpage plume that has
spread more than four miles.
Environmental
Protection
Agency Regional Administrator Judith Enck sent a letter Friday to Sen. Charles Schumer,
saying an agreement on the
cleanup plan should be final by
the end of April.
In February, Schumer asked
the EPA to intervene in the
cleanup process, which is part
of a Superfund program managed by the state.
Encompassing more than
600 acres, the Bethpage site
was home to aviation manufacturing facilities between 1936
and 1996 run by the Navy and
what is now Northrop Grum-
man. A shallow plume coming
from the site was discovered in
1986 and another, deeper one
was verified in 2005.
Northrop Grumman had refused to sign a 2001 cleanup
plan. But after the Navy revealed high levels of the degreaser and carcinogen trichloroethylene, or TCE, at the site,
the DEC in November requested the defense contractor sign
on or risk EPA intervention.
“We agree that this is a matter of great importance, and
that progress in addressing the
full scope of contamination has
been slow,” Enck wrote to
Schumer. “It is essential that
this toxic plume be addressed
in a timely and effective fashion to ensure that the people of
Long Island can continue to
have clean drinking water.”
Schumer (D-N.Y.) yesterday
said he’s pleased by the
progress.
“Bringing EPA in tells Grum-
BARRY SLOAN
] Pollution spreading for years from former plant
Northrop Grumman contractors drill in Bethpage. The company
and DEC are discussing how to clean up high levels of carcinogens.
man how serious we are and
we expect they will sign a serious agreement,” he said. “We
will stay on Grumman until
they do the right thing.”
Northrop Grumman spokeswoman Christine Restani confirmed an agreement was in the
works but referred questions to
the DEC. The DEC said it is
pressing for aggressive action
to address the plumes and the
negotiations are ongoing but
declined to comment further.
Also last week, the Bethpage
Water District amended a lawsuit filed against Northrop
Grumman in 2013 seeking damages to cover the cost of past and
future water treatment involv-
ing the groundwater plume.
A federal judge ruled Feb. 27
that the district could update
its lawsuit to include details
about TCE found in 2014 by the
Navy. Those tests found levels
of TCE as high as 4,600 parts
per billion about 2,100 feet
from a Bethpage well. The
drinking water standard is 5
parts per billion.
“This data indicates that the
containment systems on-site
are inadequate to prevent migration of additional contaminants off-site,” the amended
lawsuit states. “Moreover, the
substantial increase in TCE levels . . . may indicate a new
plume from another [Northrop
Grumman] source within the
site.”
Yesterday, the district announced that construction of a
$3 million well outside the
plume boundaries was completed. The district began drilling
the well off South Park Drive in
Bethpage State Park in 2013.
The site is two miles from
the district’s other eight wells
and should not require costly
treatment to remove contaminants, the district said.
Suffolk approves domestic violence bill
BY DAVID M. SCHWARTZ
NEWSDAY, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25, 2015
newsday.com
david.schwartz@newsday.com
The Suffolk County Legislature unanimously approved a
bill yesterday to adopt risk-assessment forms to help predict
whether a domestic batterer will
attack again.
“The ultimate goal here is to
get victims to seek help,” said
Legis. Kara Hahn (D-Setauket),
who said the assessment form
will be provided by police to all
victims who dial 911.
Anti-domestic-violence advocates, lawmakers and Suffolk
County Executive Steve Bellone
had urged county lawmakers to
pass the bill yesterday.
At an earlier news conference
in Hauppauge, Hahn said, “Recognizing that violence is escalating and fully understanding the
risk can be very difficult. This is
someone you love, someone
who’s supposed to love you.”
Suffolk police will use a
model developed by Portland,
Oregon police to determine the
risk of domestic-violence offenders to abuse again. It uses
questions such as prior domestic-violence offenses and alcohol and drug arrests to give offenders a score from 1 to 13. The
higher the number, the more
likely they will reoffend.
Suffolk ran the form through
five years’ worth of domestic-violence data and found the
model helped predict recidivism, police officials said. Police
will use that score to prioritize
responses and decide whether a
victim requires extra services
from the police department’s domestic violence unit.
Police will also give victims
forms to assess their own danger.
There were 4,003 intimate
partner violence incidents in
Suffolk in 2013 and 3,921 in
2012, according to the New
York State Division of Criminal Justice Services. There
were 38 domestic-violence-related homicides from 2009 to
2013 in Suffolk, Hahn said.
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