SOURCE:
https://www.newsday.com/long-island/towns/grumman-calverton-navy-retirees-to9ac6wg
By Tara Smith - June 5, 2025
When Grumman closed its Calverton weapons plant in 1996, some 3,000 employees lost their jobs.
Now, the U.S. Navy is hoping to connect with those former employees — or family members — as officials search for missing puzzle pieces in the probe of contamination at the sprawling 6,000-acre site.
Navy officials say they want to interview people who worked at the facility from 1954 to 1996, according to a news release announcing the initiative. "Your firsthand experience is vital to supporting our ongoing environmental cleanup efforts at the site," the department said in the release.
The government-owned, contractor-operated site in Calverton was used to develop and test Navy jets. Fueling areas, paint shops, waste disposal sites and fire training areas were also part of the campus, according to the Navy.
Specifically, the Navy is interested in learning about past operations, including waste management, use of buildings, grounds maintenance and aircraft fabrication at the site, according to the news release.
David Todd, a Navy spokesman, said in an email that "insight" from former employees "can help uncover details about past operations and practices that may have contributed to chemical use and/or release into the environment."
Searching for retirees
Residents who live nearby, as well as members of an advisory board that is overseeing the Navy's remediation efforts, have long advocated for interviews of past employees.
Ray Kreiger, who lives south of the Grumman property in Manorville, urged the Navy to pursue the interviews at a community meeting last October.
"I've met Grumman employees who have voiced concerns about things that went on there that people don't know about," Kreiger, 74, said in an interview. "And unfortunately, they've all passed away."
He hopes the message reaches retirees who may have moved south, or perhaps the children of ex-Grumman employees.
"There's a possibility out there," he said Tuesday.
At a May 29 community meeting, Navy officials said they were also trying to reach former employees in online social media groups.
The effort to better understand the legacy of pollution at Calverton is reflected in the ongoing cleanup at Bethpage Community Park. The Town of Oyster Bay has been sparring with Northrop Grumman in court to recover decades-old chemical purchase orders that the town says will shed light on what was dumped there. Northrop Grumman lawyers say those documents don't necessarily reflect what was disposed of at the park.
The Navy is responsible for cleaning up contaminated groundwater stemming from the Calverton site, which is likely linked to fuels, solvents and firefighting foams. Elevated levels of per- and polyfluoroalkyl chemicals, or PFAS, have been found in groundwater at the southern boundary of the site, in private wells and moving south toward the Peconic River.
In April, a slew of elected officials, residents and environmental advocates called on the state Department of Environmental Conservation and federal Environmental Protection Agency to declare the property a Superfund site. Suffolk County Executive Edward P. Romaine said the issue had reached a "breaking point" and the designation could accelerate cleanup efforts.
But the agencies are unlikely to transfer the property to federal Superfund status.
In an email Wednesday, DEC spokeswoman Aphrodite Montalvo said cleanup of the site falls under the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. "DEC will continue to diligently administer this program and work with State and federal partners to ensure human health and the environment are protected throughout the cleanup process," Montalvo said.
A 'good step'
Adrienne Esposito, executive director of Citizens Campaign for the Environment and a member of the advisory board overseeing the cleanup, said the Navy was taking a "good step" in seeking out the retirees. But she called for prompt remediation in the meantime.
"It should not be done in substitution for doing a comprehensive groundwater investigation," she said in an interview. The investigation aims to define the depth, width and length of the groundwater plume.
Earlier this year, the Navy launched a new round of testing at private wells around the site to better understand the extent of groundwater contamination near the property. Of 30 wells sampled, 17 showed the presence of PFAS, but not above the U.S. Department of Defense standard of 12 parts per trillion that would trigger remedial action, according to data published by the Navy.
Navy representatives have said they would not comply with New York's standard of 10 parts per trillion, or a federal limit of 4 parts per trillion that the Biden administration introduced in 2024. Last month, the EPA said it would postpone the deadline for complying with that limit from 2029 to 2031.
The Suffolk County Water Authority is nearing completion of a $9.5 million project to connect 64 homes in the area to public water, including Kreiger's. About 85% of homes have been connected so far, and the entire project is expected to wrap up in several weeks, Jeff Szabo, the authority's CEO, said in a statement.
The project included four miles of new water mains, Szabo said. He added that the Town of Riverhead secured grant funding that allowed residents to connect at no cost.
"We did get hooked up a month ago," Kreiger said. "Everybody has peace of mind now."