Navy seeks community feedback on cleanup of former Grumman site in Calverton, sets next public advisory board meeting for Oct. 29

Five key takeaways:

• The Navy is asking the community to complete a seven-question survey about the Calverton site cleanup and concerns about its impacts to environment

• The next public meeting of the community advisory board has been scheduled for Oct. 29 at Riley Avenue Elementary School in Calverton

• The Navy, which is still cleaning up pollution at the former Grumman site in Calverton, is conducting a community survey seeking feedback on site cleanup and remediation activities.

• The Navy says it is still not prepared to discuss what it will or won’t do about PFAS pollution at the site, because it is still waiting for Department of Defense policy on the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s rule, finalized in April, setting strict maximum contaminant levels for PFAS in drinking water.

• At the Oct. 29 meeting, the Navy will give “a presentation on buried drums” at the Calverton site.

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The Navy, which is still cleaning up pollution at the former Grumman site in Calverton, is conducting a community survey seeking feedback on site cleanup and remediation activities.

The survey, consisting of seven questions, can be completed online here.  To submit the survey to the Navy, it must be downloaded and emailed to NAVFAC_ML_PAO@navy.mil, or downloaded, printed and mailed to: NAVFAC Mid-Atlantic Public Affairs Office, 9324 Virginia Avenue Norfolk, VA 23511.

The survey is part of a formal five-year review mandated by the federal Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, known as CERLCA. The law requires the periodic review when hazardous substances, pollutants, or contaminants remain onsite “above levels that allow for unlimited use and unrestricted exposure.”

The site was occupied and operated by Navy contractor Grumman Corporation (later Northrop Grumman) from the1950s to the 1990s. The company assembled and tested military aircraft and equipment there for the Navy. The Navy began conducting investigations, assessments, clean-up and remediation at the former Naval Weapons Industrial Reserve Plant in 1986.

Grumman’s operations at the site polluted soil and groundwater with a variety of chemical contaminants, including oils, fuels, solvents, chemicals used to extinguish fires, discarded ammunition and other wastes. CERLCA requires the Navy to clean up and remediate the site, an obligation that continues even though most of the land within the NWIRP was transferred by the Navy to the Town of Riverhead in 1998.

Navy contractors have been removing contaminated soils, monitoring groundwater pollution and developing a final remediation plan for the site.

Last year, the Navy disclosed it has identified a number of new “areas of concern” on the site where contaminants, including PFAS, are known to be present.

More PFAS contamination detected inside the Calverton Enterprise Park, Navy investigators say

PFAS, known as “forever chemicals,” are harmful substances linked to deadly cancers, impacts to the liver and heart, and immune and developmental damage to infants and children, according to the federal Environmental Protection Agency. 

PFAS contamination has been confirmed in groundwater at the southern border of the former aerospace manufacturing site, where the Navy has a fence-line monitoring system in place. The chemicals have also been found in private residential drinking water wells south and east of the site, including at levels that exceed the N.Y. State maximum contaminant level of 10 parts per trillion. 

The Navy has maintained it is not bound by the state drinking water limits for PFAS. It has also refused to take responsibility for cleaning up off-site contamination in general.

In April, the EPA issued a final rule setting strict federal drinking water limits for five PFAS chemicals. Community members were anxious to discuss how the new rule would affect cleanup at the Calverton site. 

The Navy has not yet committed to any particular course of action regarding PFAS cleanup at the site. When the Calverton Restoration Advisory Board, the Navy’s community liaison and advisory group for the site, asked that the issue of PFAS cleanup be on the agenda for a previously scheduled May 7 advisory board meeting, the Navy’s project manager for the Calverton site  told the board the Navy could not discuss PFAS cleanup at the May 7 meeting, because it was 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. 

The Navy had to “adjust” the meeting date in light of the new EPA rule, Navy Project Manager Addison Phoenix wrote in an email to advisory board  members. The Restoration Advisory Board asked that the postponement be brief and that the Navy reschedule the meeting in June. The Navy responded in July saying it hoped to schedule the meeting later that month. But the advisory board never heard anything further. The board wrote to the Navy representative earlier this month to again ask that the meeting be scheduled. It got a response last week informing it that the Navy plans to hold a Restoration Advisory Board meeting on Oct. 29 at Riley Avenue Elementary School.  

But PFAS is still not on the meeting agenda.

“Unfortunately, DOD [Department of Defense] PFAS policy has not been issued at this time so this topic has not been added to the agenda,”  Navy Restoration Supervisor Bryan Revell wrote in an Aug. 22 email to the board. 

However, the Oct. 29 agenda will include “a presentation on buried drums at the former NWIRP Calverton as well as an update on the current Long Term Monitoring program,” Revell wrote. 

This was apparently added to the agenda in response to a letter from the Restoration Advisory Board to the Navy in June expressing the concern of local residents about Grumman’s practice of burying barrels of waste, citing recently discovered buried barrels at the company’s former Bethpage site.

The Restoration Advisory Board asked the Navy to provide an update on what has been done to identify areas at the Calverton site where drums may have been buried. The board asked whether there have been ground-penetrating radar studies in these areas and whether there are any suspect areas that warrant consideration for further investigation.

The board urged the Navy “to use ground-penetrating radar, as well as subsurface drilling and sampling, to determine if any barrels containing toxic chemicals are buried under or around the Naval Weapons Industrial Reserve Plant in Calverton in areas that have not been evaluated.”  If barrels are found, the board wrote, the Navy should “conduct testing, make that information available to the community, and conduct a thorough remediation.”

Concern about the health impacts of conditions at the site and around the former Grumman plant led Rep. Nick LaLota (NY-01) to write a letter to New York State Commissioner of Health James McDonald this week asking the state health department to undertake a comprehensive study for the Calverton community, including a detailed review of cancer rates and other potential health impacts in the area.

Read the letter here.

LaLota noted similarities between Grumman’s operations at its Calverton site and at its Bethpage site — and between the impacts of the Navy contractor’s operations on the environment in both locations.

“Calverton has a documented history of environmental contamination, including the presence of trichloroethylene (TCE), polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), and other hazardous substances in the groundwater,” LaLota wrote. 

“Given the parallels between these two sites and the precedent set by the DOH’s decision to reexamine health outcomes in Bethpage, it is both necessary and prudent to extend a similar study to the Calverton area,” LaLota said in the letter. “Specifically, this study should review updated data from the New York State Cancer Registry, taking into account the latest trends and geographic considerations over the past decade,” he wrote.

Such a study will provide “much-needed transparency for the residents of Calverton,” LaLota wrote, and will “ensure that any necessary public health interventions or remediation efforts are informed by the most current and comprehensive data available.”

The Aug. 27 letter was also signed by nine state and local elected officials, including County Executive Ed Romaine, State Senator Anthony Palumbo, Assembly Member Jodi Giglio, County Legislator Catherine Stark, Riverhead Supervisor Tim Hubbard and Riverhead council members Ken Rothwell, Bob Kern, Denise Merrifield and Joann Waski.