State To Sue EPA Over Dumping Of Dredge Spoils In Long Island Sound

SOUTHOLD, NY — New York State has announced plans to sue the United States Environmental Protection Agency over dredge dumping in the Long Island Sound that has had local communities irate for years.

Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced Thursday that New York State has filed a lawsuit against the EPA in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York challenging EPA’s decision to designate a permanent open water disposal site in eastern Long Island Sound for tens of millions of cubic yards of dredged sediments.

The EPA’s site designation violates the Ocean Dumping Act and the Coastal Zone Management Act, both say.

“Our waters are not dumping grounds. EPA’s first job is to protect our natural resources – yet by designating this unneeded disposal site, EPA is allowing huge amounts of dredged waste to be poured into yet another area of the Long Island Sound. That’s unacceptable,” Schneiderman said. “We won’t hesitate to act when the federal government fails to uphold its obligation to protect New Yorkers’ health and environment.”

“We will continue to do everything in our power to protect New York’s environment, and with the EPA’s unfathomable and destructive decision to turn the eastern Long Island Sound into a dumping ground – now is the time for action,” Cuomo said. “We will establish that this designation not only poses a major threat to a significant commercial and recreational resource, but that it also undermines New York’s long-standing efforts to end dumping in our treasured waters.”

Click here to read the lawsuit.

In August, 2016, the Governor announced New York's intention to fight the EPA's designation of the eastern Long Island Sound disposal site because of its adverse effects to the waterway.

Subsequently, the New York Department of State objected and said the EPA’s proposed site designation was inconsistent with the Long Island Sound Coastal Management Program policies. In December 2016, New York State filed a notice of intent to sue immediately after the EPA finalized its designation, a release said Thursday.

Locally, environmentalists and elected officials applauded the news.

According to the Citizens Campaign for the Environment, in 2005, New York State opposed a plan to continue dumping dredge material in the Long Island Sound.

Next came an agreement between New York, Connecticut, EPA and the Army Corps mandating a focus of beneficial reuse of dredged material and the reduction of open water dumping, a release from the Citizens Campaign for the Environment said.

However, the group added, the EPA "went back on" the 2005 agreement and pursued expanding dredge material dump sites by permitting a new one in the eastern portion of the Long Island Sound.

“EPA’s proposed third dump site is unnecessary and an assault on our beloved water body, the Long Island Sound," said Adrienne Espositio, executive director of the CCE. "We are ecstatic that New York State is once again standing up to protect this treasured asset. Long Island Sound is an ecological gem that should not to be used as a dumping ground for dredged material. The Sound is an extension of our backyards, a well used waterway for fishing, swimming, clamming, boating, kayaking, and more."

She added that the lawsuit should motivate municipalities to move away from the "cheap, destructive practice" of open water disposal. Dredged material should be used as a raw material that can be re-used and not a waste material to be dumped, she said.

"CCE’s goal has always been to phase out open water disposal and replace it with beneficial re-use. We hope this lawsuit signifies a new beginning in the legacy of Long Island Sound protection," Esposito said.

Southold Town Supervisor Scott Russell also commended the state's decision to take legal recourse. "The proposed dumping of dredge spoils is inconsistent with New York's Coastal Management Plan. It also defies all logic. I am glad the New York is asserting its authority under the law," he said.

In 2005, the states of New York and Connecticut called for, and EPA subsequently established by regulation, the goal of reducing or eliminating dredged material disposal in the estuarine waters of Long Island Sound. In contravention of the intent of that regulation, in 2016, that state maintains that the EPA increased the number of permanent open water dump sites in Long Island Sound by designating a third one in eastern Long Island Sound, according to the release from the state.

"The lawsuit charges that, in designating the dump site, EPA failed to identify the navigational conflicts that will be caused by the dump site location, to examine the environmental impacts of dumping dredged materials under differing testing regimes, to designate historically used or ocean disposal sites and to properly quantify the existing capacity at already designated sites," the release said.

"Further, the EPA has been unresponsive to New York’s stated concerns about the reliability of sediment testing and has made insufficient assurances that the dredged material will not have a negative impact on the environment, as it has in the past," the release added.

The state also says that amping up open water disposal of dredge materials flies in the face of policies aimed at protecting the natural resource and restoring the Long Island Sound for future generations.

Residents turned out in Mattituck to blast the plan in 2016; while others set out to clear up what they said was misinformation.

Steve Wolfe of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers gave a history of aquatic placement of dredged material, dating back to the 1800s.

After the Clean Water Act in the 1970s, he said, the process for designating a disposal site became "more rigorous" and led to the Disposal Area Monitoring System, which was born in 1977.

He set out to dispel "misinformation." To begin, Wolfe said, "Toxic material is not placed in the Sound."

While that may have been the case historically, with the passage of environmental regulations and constraints to the EPA, that's no longer true, he said, emphasizing the "stringent testing" that takes place.

Impacts to the sea bottom are limited to the direct footprint, he said, adding that some organisms buried can "dig their way out." What cannot, eventually "starts to grow back," he said.

Wolfe also said that lobster die-off and nutrient issues in the Sound "have nothing to do with dredge material placement."

Mel Cote of the EPA said the EPA intends to include its same restrictions on eastern sites, with a new interagency group, the Long Island Sound Regional Dredging "Team," proposed that would ensure all large dredging projects are thoroughly vetted, with an alternatives analysis, and an eye toward developing and promoting alternatives and cost sharing.