Riverhead Town and Suffolk County launch probe into groundwater pollution at former Calverton Grumman site

The Riverhead Water District and Suffolk County Department of Health Services are independently investigating a groundwater pollution plume in and around the former Northrop Grumman site in Calverton.

The town and the county hope to learn about how groundwater migrating from the site could impact the public water supply in the area, according to Riverhead Water District Superintendent Frank Mancini. The town is particularly concerned with synthetic “forever chemicals,” known as PFAS, which is present in groundwater at the site, Mancini said. The chemicals have been linked to cancers and other harmful health effects, according to the federal Environmental Protection Agency and state health officials. Drilling for samples has already started, Mancini said.

“We know that they have discovered a relatively hot PFAS plume on the northeastern side of the site,” Mancini said, referring to the U.S Navy, which leased the land to Grumman for decades and is leading the land’s environmental restoration. “We don’t know that it’s leaving the site yet — we don’t know any of these things. But if we wait for them to figure it out, it could potentially be threatening” to water district wells.

After the investigation, Mancini said, the town and county will have “a much better idea of how bad this PFAS issue is.” He said that depending on the outcome, the investigation can help put more pressure on the Navy to take action remediating the offsite pollution, which it has consistently refused to do. 

“Maybe it’s not bad at all” or “maybe it’s terrible,” Mancini said of the pollution. “But there’s value to an independent investigation.“

Riverhead Town will be paying for the PFAS analysis, while the county will take on the rest of the cost, including drilling wells for the tests, Mancini said. The Town Board on Tuesday transferred $40,000 of its fund balance to a budget for the investigation. Mancini said he expects the testing to cost roughly half of that amount.

For the last few years, attention to the migration of pollutants from the former Grumman site — now the site of the Calverton Enterprise Park — has primarily been concentrated on the impacts to private wells in the surrounding areas. The town has obtained millions of dollars in grants for public water extensions in the Calverton and Manorville area to supply public water to homes dependent on private wells, while it continues to pressure the Navy to take responsibility for the situation. 

But the threat being investigated now is the impact the pollution could have to the Riverhead Water District’s public water supply in Calverton. Mancini said he is concerned the pollution is moving towards the long-term capture zone for the water district’s well on the north end of Fresh Pond Avenue.

“We’ve known for a long time that there is contamination up there from past practices of Grumman and the Navy,” Suffolk County Legislator Catherine Stark, of Riverhead, said. “And the county executive as well as myself sees that public health is of the utmost importance, and he let me know that he was going to direct them to start drilling.” 

The site’s environmental remediation process is currently being done through a process required by a federal law called the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, known as CERCLA. Mancini said it’s a lengthy process that “doesn’t give the local regulators any authority whatsoever.” 

“I hope we don’t find anything and it’s not coming towards my well field. But if it is, they better take action,” Mancini said, referring to the Navy. “Because we didn’t do any of this.” 

Elected officials, residents and environmental advocates have continually pressured the Navy to claim responsibility for offsite pollution and provide funding for public water extensions. Navy representatives have rebuffed those demands and have maintained it is not responsible for remediating off-site groundwater pollution, or even for conducting continued testing, because PFAS had not been found at levels that exceeded an EPA “lifetime health advisory.” Despite the EPA’s rules surrounding PFAS having changed since the advisory, the Navy has not changed its position on cleaning up off site groundwater pollution plumes.  

The investigation comes after the Environmental Protection Agency last month announced new drinking water standards for PFAS contamination. The Navy postponed a meeting of the Calverton Restoration Advisory Board scheduled for this week because, according to the Navy’d project manager, the Navy is waiting for the Department of Defense “to issue policy” on how new federal drinking water standards will be incorporated into the cleanup program for the Calverton site.

MORE COVERAGE: Navy to community advisory board: PFAS cleanup in Calverton off the agenda due to strict new federal limits on ‘forever chemicals’

Members of the Calverton Restoration Advisory Board, a community group established by the Navy as a liaison to the community, advocate for the Navy to use the new federal standard. In the past, the board advocated for the Navy to comply with existing New York State drinking water standards for PFAS, but the Navy declined, stating it was bound only by the EPA’s “lifetime health advisory” for PFAS, which didn’t set maximum contaminant levels for PFAS in drinking water.

PFAS — shorthand for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — are synthetic chemicals used for a variety of purposes in many different industrial processes and consumer products, including firefighting foam used to extinguish fires involving fuel. The chemicals are incredibly difficult to break down — which has given them the nickname “forever chemicals” — and contaminate everything from drinking water to food, food packaging and personal care products, according to scientists. 

A representative for Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine did not return a request for comment before this article was published.