Superfund cleanup of Long Island aviation site finally concludes

A former aviation facility in Long Island that had contaminated groundwater and nearby drinking wells is ready for redevelopment following a decades-long cleanup, state environmental officials said Wednesday.

A $50 million superfund cleanup successfully restored nearly all of the 125-acre tract of land where Lawrence Aviation Industries once manufactured titanium sheet metal in Suffolk County.

Officials said they’re now considering building a solar farm and Long Island Rail Road rail yard on the land that once was so polluted that the EPA provided bottled water to nearby residents whose wells were tainted with toxins. The LIRR project could improve reliability on the Port Jefferson branch, MTA officials have said.

The land was listed as a Superfund site 30 years ago.

“It is a true environmental success story when an old industrial toxic site filled with legacy contamination is properly remediated and turned into a community asset,” Adrienne Esposito, the executive director of Citizens Campaign for the Environment, said “This is what happens when government and stakeholders work together to advance the critical goal of environmental and public health protection.”

Five acres of the site near a commercial area of Port Jefferson Station in Brookhaven will remain a superfund site and not be redeveloped.

The cleanup involved the demolition of 15 buildings, as well as the removal of around 2,500 drums containing toxic substances, 3,000 gallons of machine oils and 18 storage tanks full of industrial waste and fuel oils. Officials said 17,000 tons of contaminated soil were excavated from the site. The cleanup, overseen by the Department of Environmental Conservation and the EPA, began in 1987.

”The contaminants that were poured – in some cases, not just carelessly, but aggressively – poured into the ground, is something that was a meaningful challenge,” Steven Englebright, a Suffolk County legislator, said.

The facility produced titanium sheet metal for the aviation industry from 1959 until 2003. In 1980, Lawrence Aviation Industries crushed more than 1,600 drums of waste instead of removing them from the site, resulting in contamination of the soil.

“ We know for too long, for decades, this area was abandoned. It was littered with derelict buildings and the remnants of its formal industrial use. Casting a hulking shadow over the neighborhood here in Brookhaven and Port Jefferson Station communities,”  Kathy Haas, the Department of Environmental Conservation’s Long Island regional director, said.

The DEC said it has completed soil and groundwater cleanup. The agency excavated the contaminated soil and removed it off-site. People may still be exposed to contaminants in the water if they are using the adjacent Old Mill Creek Pond, which has signs posted discouraging use.