Years of independent ground and surface water testing by Suffolk County shows that a far more extensive plume of industrial chemicals is spreading beyond the former Grumman site in Calverton than the U.S. Navy has acknowledged. 

This guest essay reflects the views of Adrienne Esposito, the executive director of Citizens Campaign for the Environment, an advocacy organization based on Long Island.

I've spent decades fighting water contamination on Long Island. I've sat with families who found PFAS in their well water and helped communities and water districts scramble to obtain funding for expensive treatment systems. I've testified for congressional hearings to increase the understanding that PFAS, commonly called "forever chemicals," aren't a hypothetical threat — they are a daily, sickening reality for millions of Americans.

Efforts to revamp New York State environmental laws to lower barriers to building housing more quickly threw the state’s annual budget process into limbo.

Negotiations blew past an April 1 budget deliberation deadline, with a proposed overhaul of the State Environmental Quality Review Act emerging as a point of impasse.

In Dec. 2011, a wind turbine standing more than 120-feet tall was installed at the Point Lookout Department of Conservation and Waterways building. The turbine was one of the town’s first steps in a clean energy initiative, which would also include the installation of solar panel arrays at town facilities, a transition to roughly 50,000 LED streetlights and more.

Frustration with the slow pace of progress in the cleanup of the former Grumman superfund site in Calverton has residents and government officials fed up.