Schumer Wants Independent Look At Radium Levels In LI Plume Case

BETHPAGE, NY—U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer is pushing a plan geared towards guaranteeing ironclad accuracy in test results for radium levels in nearby groundwater regarding the Navy-Grumman toxic plume, according to a press release.

Tetra Tech is currently performing sampling of radium levels at the former Naval plant in Bethpage. However, Tetra Tech is a Navy-contracted company that allegedly falsified soil samples and data with incomplete and inaccurate probes during a Navy site cleanup in San Francisco per legal complaints made by the U.S. Department of Justice, according to ENR, Schumer said.

As a result, Schumer’s push aims to include an amendment in the upcoming National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would require the testing to receive an independent, second look. Currently, there is no such statutory mandate and the NDAA hasn't been passed, yet. Schumer said locals and others remain troubled by Tetra Tech’s past and that this amendment would deliver a sigh of relief.

"When it comes to the water we drink here on Long Island and in the beautiful community of Bethpage, the stakes are too high to be anything but certain," Schumer said on Monday. "My push, today, aims to remove a giant weight from the shoulders of everyone here with me today, and the residents they represent."

Employees of Tetra Tech EC, an environmental unit of Tetra Tech Inc., were allegedly ordered by company supervisors to commit widespread fraud in the cleanup of Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, a Superfund site in San Francisco, Schumer said. In September 2017, the Navy released a preliminary analysis of the cleanup which found that nearly half of the samples taken from the site had been falsified or manipulated, Schumer said. Two field supervisors plead guilty in 2017 to falsifying records by directing workers to substitute samples from potentially contaminated areas for clean soil samples, Schumer said.

Tetra Tech NUS, the architectural and engineering unit of the parent company, already conducted four radium samplings at Naval Weapons Industrial Reserve Plant Bethpage. The first sampling was done in April and May of 2018, the second was finished in September 2018, the third was in December 2018, and the fourth came in March 2019. Tetra Tech NUS is scheduled to do a fifth sampling this month.

"Radium is so serious, and this testing is so critical, that holding the Navy to a guarantee on the verification of results requires an ironclad law," Schumer said. "And this should be across-the-board, with all contractors, because there will always be bad apples who try to skirt the system, cut corners on testing, and they must and should be held accountable—but you have to root them out. And the only way to ensure this is to pass the law I am including in the NDAA. This is not a partisan issue. This is a public health issue, plain and simple."

Schumer says required verification is the only way Tetra Tech's sampling results can be trusted. Following the concerns of Schumer and others, the Navy has changed its contract in Bethpage, requiring a third-party contractor, Validata Chemical Services, Inc., to review the quality of Tetra Tech’s radium testing data. However, Schumer says the review needs to be in law to guarantee the accuracy of the radium testing. That would be achieved with the amendment to the NDAA.

Schumer very recently filed the amendment and is urging its inclusion in FY2020 NDAA, so the Secretary of the Navy would be mandated to require an independent third-party to review any radium testing done by Navy contractors. Schumer argued that the health risks posed by radium are too deadly to turn a blind-eye to contractors who have and may continue to falsify or manipulate test results.

"Protecting the health, safety and welfare of residents must be the highest priority when remediating the harmful contaminants left behind by Grumman and the Navy," Town of Oyster Bay Supervisor Joseph Saladino said.

Andrew Stroud of HansonBridgett, on behalf of Tetra Tech, disputed a few points. He said that neither “Tetra Tech Inc.” nor Tetra Tech NUS, the business unit performing the Bethpage work, had any involvement with the Hunters Points clean-up in San Francisco.

He added that two rogue employees of Tetra Tech EC, Inc., as opposed to them being company supervisors, have admitted to wrongdoing in very limited areas of the Hunters Point clean-up in 2012, and there was no "widespread fraud."

Lastly, Stroud said the Navy never "released a preliminary analysis" that found that "nearly half of the samples taken from the site had been falsified or manipulated." The preliminary Navy draft reports were leaked and not released, Stroud said. Stroud also contends the notion that the samples had been falsified or manipulated, but only that further testing of some samples was recommended.