Groundwater Contamination Lawsuits Costing Village Millions

After trustees approved a $110,056.03 payment to Sive, Paget & Riesel, PC, an environmental law firm retained to fight parties believed to be responsible for village groundwater contamination, Grove Street resident Bob Orosz questioned whether or not a light was at the end of the tunnel.

"Are we any closer to an ending here?" he asked. "If you're paying somebody by the hour it seems to me that there's no real rush involved."

Village counsel Gary Fishberg said the village is dealing with very "sophisticated" issues and remediation efforts have cost Garden City millions.

"Basically this is pointing a finger at the companies which we believe caused the contaminants to go into the water," he said. "They are very complicated issues. It's in federal court. It's also a matter before the [Environmental Protection Agency] so we're really working two parallel pieces of this."

Fishberg said decisions in the case have been "by and large" favorable for the village so far. "There's a lot of work involved and because of that these things take a long time to resolve. You're looking at millions of dollars here," he added.

There are several Superfund sites in question, including Fulton Avenue, Jackson Steel and Roosevelt Field Airfield.

According to Public Works director Robert Mangan, the only lawsuit that is current is the Fulton Avenue Superfund site. The EPA is handling the other two sites and the village has not filed on either as of yet, he said.

The Fulton Avenue Superfund site is located in Garden City Park and is the former location of a cutting mill and dry cleaning facility. The EPA is investigating a groundwater plume of VOCs mainly composed of the dry cleaning solvent PCE migrating both horizontally and vertically. Public supply wells, according to the EPA, may have been or may currently be impacted by this plume.

VOCs, especially PCE, were detected in both on-site and off-site groundwater monitoring wells and have impacted at least one public supply well and possibly others. These wells have either been taken out of service or are being treated in order to meet drinking water standards. The Nassau County Department of Health and the Garden City Water District are managing the site contamination, which is migrating into Garden City's wells, according to the EPA.

Mayor Robert Rothschild said Garden City water is safe to drink and the ongoing payments have been budgeted for.

"We knew this lawsuit was in place and in process and we have allowed for that. This is a groundwater lawsuit so any recovery goes back into the water district fund base," the mayor said.

Village auditor Jim Olivo confirmed the same: "That is our intention, yes."

The mayor didn't want to speculate when the lawsuits would be resolved but did say progress has been made.

"I really don't want to guess at it but I think we have gotten closer," he said. "I would hope within the next 18 months we'll hopefully be at the end of the road on some of these."

Mayor Rothschild explained the complexity of the situation: "As far as the board is concerned, we have made great progress we think in several of these lawsuits. These are large lawsuits with international companies. These are not things that can be settled easily. A lot of these lawsuits end up with a lot of parties in them and it's not easy to get them completed."