Great Neck residents and elected officials on Thursday presented contrasting opinions on a state Department of Conservation proposal that would de-contaminate a toxic plume beneath an office complex at 1111 Marcus Avenue in the Village of Lake Success and a neighboring property in New Hyde Park.
“I think what you’re doing is a huge compromise,” one resident said of the DEC’s proposal at a public hearing at Great Neck South Middle School, which was met with applause by the audience. “I think it’s a cheap remedy and I think it’s a cheap way out.”
Residents overwhelmingly opposed the $32 million proposal to remove volatile organic chemicals from the groundwater plumes, saying the DEC should implement a more extensive plan for the de-contamination.
“You have to help the population,” one resident told DEC and state Department of Health officials attending the meeting.
Former Lake Success Mayor Robert Bernstein joined other residents in calling for the DEC to place a water pumping station on the Deepdale golf course, located on the service road of the Long Island Expressway.
But Nick Valkenburg, vice president of environmental consultant company ARCADIS, said the feasibility of that plan and other proposals made by the residents were “impossible.”
“They’re not going to allow a pumping station on their golf course,” said Valkenburg, whose firm is a DEC consultant on the issues surrounding contamination beneath 1111 Marcus Ave. “It’s private property and they can do what they want with it.”
Other residents called for officials to investigate if the buildings at 1111 Marcus Ave. or areas surrounding the building came in contact with carcinogens and to make all information on the study available to the public.
DEC officials told residents all information on the study is available at the Great Neck Public Library, 159 Bayview Avenue, and the Hillside Public Library, 155 Lakeville Road in New Hyde Park.
Department of Health officials, responding to questions from residents, said a cancer study of the affected areas has not been conducted.
The DEC said two weeks ago groundwater plumes beneath 1111 Marcus Avenue in Lake Success and a neighboring property at 400 Lakeville Road in New Hyde Park “represents a significant threat to public health or the environment.” According to the DEC, “volatile organic compounds” including “dichlorothene, trichloroethene, tetrachloroethene” have been found in the underground groundwater plume.
The DEC has proposed an upgrade of water treatment machines at 1111 Marcus Avenue to prevent the “intrusion of chemical vapors” into existing and future buildings located at the complex. The DEC also proposed to increase the 730 gallon-per-minute groundwater and extraction system currently on the site to 850 gallons-per-minute.
Exposure to trichloroethylene has been found to cause liver and kidney cancer in animals, according to the federal Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
Exposure to tetrachloroethene and dichlorothene has been found to cause irritation to the skin, heart and liver, as well as cause drowsiness, nausea, vomiting and cardiac arrhythmias.
The groundwater plume was also found to contain Freon-22, which migrated from the groundwater plume beneath 400 Lakeville Road in New Hyde Park.
The Freon-22 migrated from 400 Lakeville Road because the two plumes “commingle,” according to the state DEC.
Exposure to Freon-22 can cause dizziness, loss of concentration, depression and/or cardiac arrhythmia if inhaled in high concentrations, and can also cause asphyxiation if inhaled in confined spaces, according to the center.
At the 400 Lakeville Road, the DEC is proposing to install a “public water supply wellhead treatment system” and implement a response plan if containments “exceed site-specific action levels.”
The proposed $32 million project includes $8,600,000 to construct the system and $1.4 million in annual operation costs, according to the state DEC.
The project would be paid for by Lockheed Martin, the former owner of the complex that remains responsible for the environmental cleanup.
Several New Hyde Park residents asked what was being done to prevent the contamination from spreading further south to their homes.
Girish Desai, project manager for the DEC, said the contamination is moving northwest and does not present a threat to residents living south of 1111 Marcus Avenue.
Gary Cambre, a spokesman for Lockheed Martin, said in an e-mail he believes the DEC’s proposal “is equally protective of the water supply as other options while creating the least amount of disruption to the community and area neighborhoods.”
Elected officials of the Great Neck peninsula on Thursday said they also approved of the DEC’s proposal and urged officials to implement the plan as soon as possible.
Village of Lake Success Mayor Ronald Cooper said other proposals to clean up the site “will take significantly more time to effectuate.”
Nassau County Legislator Ellen Birnbaum (D-Great Neck) said she believed the proposal is “on the right track.”
“We need to have remediation efforts immediately,” Birnbaum said. “Now is the time.”
State Assemblywoman Michelle Schimel (D-Great Neck) said she hopes the proposed remediation efforts “becomes a model for the rest of the state.”
“I hope that we will finally come to a speedy conclusion,” Schimel said.
State Sen, Jack Martins (R-Mineola) said he “wished it had been done years ago.”
The main source of the contaminants on the property resulted from the manufacturing operations of Unisys, which included waste solvents such as TCE and PCE, according to Lockheed Martin.
“The waste solvents were discharged to a dry well on an outside corner of the building and are the main source of the contaminants,” the company said in an e-mail.
In 2011, a Village of Lake Success Planning Board study found subterranean gases and contaminated ground water in the soil beneath North Shore-LIJ’s Center for Advanced Medicine, also located at 1111 Marcus Avenue. The center offers outpatient mammography, radiology and other oncology treatments.
The contaminants ranged from tetracholoride, which causes cancer and liver damage, to isopropylamine, butanone, acetone and dichloromethane, planning board member Alan Mindel said at a December 2011 meeting.
Mindel, who was elected to the village board of trustees two weeks ago, was the only member of the six-person planning board to oppose approval of the state’s environmental quality review findings needed for North Shore-LIJ to convert warehouse space to medical offices at 1111 Marcus Avenue facility.
Mindel said the chemicals caused “(Symptoms) like cancer, depression, dizziness and all kinds of items going on.”
Village officials in July 2012 after approving plans for the building said they believed the environmental issues have bee addressed.
The 94-acre 1111 Marcus Avenue site was originally constructed by the U.S. Government in 1941 to be used as a plant for Sperry Gyroscope, which manufactured weapons used during World War II.
Since then, the site has been used for various enterprises. It served as the original home of the United Nations and in 1951 was sold to a series of military contractors, including Lockheed Martin.
After Lockheed sold the property in 2000, it was redeveloped as a mixed-use complex that includes the studio for Public Access Television, Hain Celestial and North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System’s Center for Advanced Medicine.
