In Calverton, Schumer calls on Navy to expedite remediation of toxic Grumman weapons plant plume

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and local officials are calling on the U.S. Navy to expedite cleanup efforts at a former development site and of  a toxic groundwater plume that is inching toward the Peconic Bay.

Schumer appeared in Calverton Thursday to call on the U.S. Navy to resume testing of the plume at Enterprise Park after the Navy pushed back a deadline 10 years to 2039, to conclude its assessment and come up with a plan to clean up contaminants from the former Grumman weapons plant.

The plume, which testing by Suffolk County revealed contains elevated levels of PFAS "forever chemicals" and other cancer-causing compounds, including 1,4-dioxane, is moving 1 foot per day, Riverhead Town officials and environmentalists said.

"Every season, the Navy runs out the clock. The plume gets further, the scope gets bigger, the cost to the taxpayers goes up," Schumer said. "If that contamination reaches the Peconic River, this stops being a Calverton problem and it becomes a regional crisis and an irreversible one, all the way out to the end of East End."

Schumer said the federal government has stalled cleanup efforts, but the Navy has disputed the county's study. The senator said the Navy should accept the county's study or expedite and expand its assessment for more than one chemical at a time.

U.S. Navy officials could not immediately be reached for comment Thursday.

The former Naval Weapons Industrial Reserve Plant was built in 1954 for the assembly, testing and retrofitting of naval combat aircraft during the Cold War. It was shuttered in 1996.

A Suffolk County water study released earlier this year found 11 PFAS compounds across 21 samples collected near the 6,000-acre site, Schumer said. The study also found 12 samples came back with contamination 100 times higher than New York State drinking water standard. It also found 1,4-dioxane between Swan Pond and Donohue Pond at nearly 15 times the state drinking water standard, Schumer said.

The Navy's revised schedule pushed back the study at Calverton to 2039 after initially setting a target for 2029 to develop a remediation plan.

"In 10 years, there's a lot of movement in a plume and a lot more damage it does to drinking water quality, to rivers and streams and estuaries where it eventually drains out and contaminates," said Adrienne Esposito, director of the Long Island group Citizens Campaign for the Environment.

Schumer said the Navy has concealed testing of chemicals found in fish and said the Navy should add more monitoring wells for pollutants.

"Long Island has already too many forever chemicals. We don't need a forever cleanup again," he said.

Navy officials have said they've already spent $78 million on the site even before the cleanup is underway, Esposito said. Advocates have urged the Navy to add an extrication well at the edge of the plume near the former fire suppression area where many chemicals were initially released into the environment. 

Riverhead has received $9 million in federal funding to help connect residents previously on private wells to clean water hookups, officials said, but Schumer called on the Navy to remediate the chemicals in the groundwater before they spread even further.

Riverhead Town Board members said they are working with Suffolk County officials, Assemb. Jodi Giglio (R-Baiting Hollow) and Rep. Nick LaLota, (R-Amityville) a Navy veteran, in a bipartisan effort for the cleanup plan. 

"It's been 30 years, and the Navy sets up roadblocks every step of the way. We have to see where this contamination is going," Giglio said. "Everyone should have clean water and I think everyone can agree with that."