Grumman Sued By Town Of Oyster Bay Over Bethpage Ball Field Cleanup

BETHPAGE, NY — The Town of Oyster Bay filed a federal lawsuit against the Grumman Corporation because officials believe the company has long stalled cleaning up the ball field at Bethpage Community Park, Oyster Bay Supervisor Joseph Saladino announced.

The ball field closed to the public in 2002 because of chemicals found deep in the soil, the town said.

"We are tired of the lack of attention, lack of detail and lack of urgency demonstrated by Grumman, and we are not going to sit and wait any longer as the park cannot be fully open to the residents of Bethpage," Saladino said in a news release. "The Grumman Corporation has been dragging its feet, hasn’t been following appropriate protocols set forth by the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) or the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and quite frankly has not been doing what is right to fully protect the health and safety of our residents and the environment."

Elevated levels of soil contamination in parts of Bethpage Community Park were first discovered in 2002, and the park was closed to the public. Sections reopened following extensive testing, the town said. The park in 2006 underwent a $20 million remediation project funded by Town of Oyster Bay taxpayers.

"Grumman has not reimbursed taxpayers for these costs to date," the town stated.

Grumman has not yet responded to Patch's request for comment.

The ball field, however, remains closed as soil contamination far below the ground continues to exist.

The contamination was caused by a plume of toxic water because of industrial waste dumping from U.S. Navy and Northrop Grumman manufacturing facilities, state officials said. The underground plume was nearly four miles long and two miles wide.

The contaminated water led to a New York State Department of Health investigation into several cancer cases in Bethpage, Newsday reported.

Grumman gifted the land that would become Bethpage Community Park to the town in 1962 under the condition it would be used as a park. The 18-acre parcel was previously used by the company as a dumping ground for toxic chemicals containing high concentrations of volatile organic compounds, or VOCs. Environmental investigations in the 1980s and 90s found the extent of the contamination of the land.

According to the EPA, volatile organic compounds can be emitted as gasses. Exposure can cause damage to the liver, kidneys and the central nervous system, as well as cancer.

Saladino said the town has taken several steps to clean the contaminated areas of the park's ball field so the community can use it again, "despite Grumman's lack of action."

The town, with cooperation from the Department of Environmental Conservation, was working with Grumman to remediate two types of contamination under the ball field, but the project was stalling, according to Oyster Bay.

Grumman installed remediation equipment above the contaminated soil but "refuses to expedite the process and wishes to leave behind PCBs deep below the surface," the town wrote.

PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyl, cause cancer in animals, while studies in humans support evidence for potential carcinogenic and non-carcinogenic effects, according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency.

"Studies in animals provide conclusive evidence that PCBs cause cancer," the EPA's website reads. "Studies in humans raise further concerns regarding the potential carcinogenicity of PCBs. Taken together, the data strongly suggest that PCBs are probable human carcinogens."

The town said its "ultimate goal" is to have all the contaminated soil completely removed, at Grumman’s expense, and trucked off Long Island.

"An entire generation of town residents have lost out on public access to the full enjoyment of the park, and soil borings demonstrate that a concentration of toxic contamination continues to exist far beneath the surface at the ball field," Saladino said. "It’s unfortunate that it’s come to this but we will stop at nothing to ask Grumman to right their wrongs and remediate this ball field to the highest standards. We urge Grumman to fully remove all contaminated soils from this site without being placed back into the ground. The hamlet of Bethpage — this beautiful community comprised of Grumman families that built the World War II fighters, the Lunar Module and F-14 Tomcat — should not be burdened with this toxic legacy site into the future."

Oyster Bay first announced its intent to sue the Grumman Corporation in December.

Grumman in August 2020 turned on heating equipment to warm the soil beneath Bethpage Community Park, the company stated in a news release from a few years ago.

The technology was meant to warm the soil over a six-month period to vaporize the chemicals found deep in the soil. The company’s processing equipment was to vacuum the vapor, scrub the chemicals from the vapor, and release the treated air to the atmosphere.

The United States Navy and Northrop Grumman came to terms with New York state on a $406 million deal to fully contain and treat the toxic water plume lurking beneath Bethpage, then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced in December 2020. The Navy and Northrop Grumman were tasked with constructing a network of extraction wells to hydraulically contain and remediate the plume.

Additionally, Northrop Grumman agreed to a $104.4 million Natural Resource Damages settlement. Those funds were to be used to advance cleanup, water supply and aquifer protection projects associated with the plume.