Grumman’s toxic legacy shows why strong regulations are needed. Will Zeldin’s EPA step up? 

The Navy’s latest dodge in its ongoing — and so far successful — effort to avoid responsibility for plumes of contaminated groundwater traveling off the former Grumman site in Calverton has officially entered the Twilight Zone.

Now, the Navy says it need not adhere to the drinking water limits on PFAS, the toxic “forever” chemicals that the Environmental Protection Agency finally adopted earlier this year. 

Why?

Because the Department of Defense has set its own standard. 

Based on what? 

The Navy’s project manager at the Oct. 29 community meeting actually said the Navy does not know. 

But guess what? The private wells contaminated or threatened by PFAS don’t have PFAS levels that exceed the DOD’s standard — which is three times higher than the EPA’s standard. 

How lucky is that — for the DOD, anyway? 

See story: Military adopts ‘action level’ policy for PFAS cleanup that’s 3 times federal EPA standard

The Pentagon, after all, is facing massive cleanup costs at hundreds of polluted military installations across the country. So the DOD’s continued recalcitrance in accepting accountability is a lot bigger than the actions required in Calverton.

It’s not so lucky for local residents and property owners whose drinking water wells are contaminated with or threatened by these toxic chemicals, which are known to pose serious risks to human health, according to the EPA.

It’s also not so lucky for local governments and taxpayers left to shoulder the financial burden — tens of millions of dollars — of extending public water mains to serve homes and businesses in the path of the toxic plumes.

And let’s not forget the Peconic Estuary, which provides a coastal habitat for 140 globally and locally rare species. The Peconic River is already contaminated by the Navy plume and the state last year issued advisories regarding consumption of fish caught in the waterway.

But the DOD doesn’t seem to give a hoot about any of that — or about us.

For decades, the Navy and its contractors have given hundreds of presentations detailing the minutia of its incremental investigations and cleanups at the former Grumman site, which we now know as the Enterprise Park at Calverton (EPCAL). The federal government has probably spent millions of dollars on this effort, which has proceeded at a glacial pace.

The Navy’s “restoration” of the former Grumman site started at a time when most people never even heard of PFAS, let alone knew anything about the dangers of these chemicals. 

The Navy, it turns out, knew about them for years before acknowledging it to the public, according to Navy documents. But since the threat these chemicals pose has become public knowledge, the Navy has done everything possible to avoid responsibility for cleaning up its mess.

So the Navy’s latest “we made up our own standard” dodge is not exactly surprising. But it really doesn’t make it less shocking. And like every other aspect of this long, drawn-out saga, we’re left to wait and see what happens.

We shall soon see if EPA standards are going to matter at all, let alone whether someone will force the Pentagon to abide by them. President-elect Trump has named former Rep. Lee Zeldin as his pick for EPA administrator. (See story.) Zeldin has first-hand knowledge about the problems at Calverton. He stood with residents as they demanded Navy action. And he worked hard to secure federal funding for public water mains to serve the areas affected by the Navy plumes.

But as EPA administrator, part of Zeldin’s mission will be deregulation, something that the Long Island native was keen on doing to many types of environmental regulations when he represented our congressional district during the first Trump administration.

Deregulation is a “way to unleash the power of American businesses,” the president-elect said in a statement announcing his decision to nominate Zeldin for the top spot at the Environmental Protection Agency.

The Grumman Corporation (later Northrop Grumman) certainly had unleashed power while it controlled the massive Calverton property — untethered by regulatory restraints aimed at protecting the wildlife and habitat on those thousands of acres or the precious sole-source aquifer that flows beneath the sandy soils over which it had dominion under contract with the Navy for 40 years.

Yes, Grumman accomplished much good for the national defense, space exploration and the local economy. 

But it also walked away from that site in 1996 without being held to account for business practices there that have had long-lasting impacts on all who live in the vicinity of the facility — all with the blessing of the Navy.

And we are now paying the price —  living with the result of business operating with unleashed power without regulatory oversight. 

Regulations exist for a reason and the reasons are bigger than the business interests of individual companies. They include public safety, health and welfare — the protection of which go to the core of government’s purpose. 

We hope Lee Zeldin, as EPA administrator, remembers that.

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