SOURCE:
https://www.eastendbeacon.com/suffolk-county-pushes-navy-to-clean-up-epcal-plumes/
April 29, 2026
Suffolk County says it has compiled mountains of ammunition in its fight to get the U.S. Navy to clean up plumes of numerous hazardous compounds emanating from the Enterprise Park at Calverton, including data showing fish highly contaminated with the perfluorinated compound PFOS the county says the Navy withheld for a year, and high levels of other perfluorinated compounds in the headwaters of the Peconic River.
After the U.S. Navy refused to allow the Suffolk County Health Department to present the results of its testing of wells surrounding plumes of contaminated groundwater from the former Navy-owned Grumman plant in Calverton at the February meeting of the Calverton Restoration Advisory Board (RAB), county representatives and members of the RAB took matters into their own hands Tuesday evening.
With threats to the Navy that Suffolk County is “not without resources and is prepared to do what we need to do,” Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine made clear at a community meeting April 28 at the Manorville Fire Department that “we are not without options. I hope the Navy understands this problem is not going to go away.”
“They forgot to clean up the mess they made,” he said.
It’s been 30 years since the Navy handed over the property now known as the Enterprise Park at Calverton (EPCAL) to Riverhead Town to be used for economic development purposes, with a promise to continue to remediate the site, where Grumman built aircraft including the F-14 Tomcat and A-6 Intruder from 1956 to 1996.
But after 62 biannual meetings, the Navy provided a timeline for their work at the February meeting that showed they were at the beginning of the Superfund site evaluation process, known as CERCLA, and still very far from picking a method to remediate the contamination.
Suffolk County Legislator Greg Doroski, who was at the February RAB meeting, said the slide showing the cleanup of just one contaminant — 1,4, dixoane — as at the beginning of the CERCLA process, after 30 years, was “infuriating.”
“How does the public motivate the Navy to get to the cleanup phase?” he asked.
“We’re working hard to hold the Navy accountable, but we need help,” Citizens Campaign for the Environment Executive Director Adrienne Esposito told the crowd. “We’ve been wrestling the Navy for the last several years. It has been a battle. It shouldn’t be this hard…. This is not rocket science. Plumes are being cleaned up across Long Island that are bigger than this.”
The Navy issued a formal response to the meeting on Wednesday, April 29, stating that its Environmental Restoration Program at the site “is a mature, ongoing effort focused on cleaning up contamination released at the facility and managing any migration that may have occurred beyond the original release areas.”
The Navy said that, working with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation since 1996, it had “achieved all cleanup goals for 11 sites,” involving the treatment of more than 184 million gallons of contaminated groundwater, removal of 63,000 pounds of organic compounds and hydrocarbons, excavation of 33,572 tons of contaminated soil and removal of 1,171 munitions-related items.
Delay in Fish Findings
Andy Rapiejko, a hydrogeologist and supervisor of the county’s Bureau of Groundwater Investigation and Management, detailed numerous issues with contamination documented by the County Health Department, including several troubling new findings this year.
Mr. Rapiejko said the Navy had collected fish from Swan Pond, a popular fishing site south of EPCAL which is in the midst of two of the most well-documented contamination plumes plumes, in February of 2025, but did not notify the County Health Department of the results of that testing until February of 2026.
The results, he said, showed fillets of bluegill, largemouth bass and pumpkinseed with PFOS concentrations between 13.7 and 60.6 parts per billion. The New York State Department of Health advises people not to eat fish with PFOS concentrations above 40 ppb, and to not eat fish with between 10 and 40 ppb of PFOS more than once a month.
Mr. Rapiejko said the county has already posted No Fishing signs at the pond, and expects an official fishing advisory to be issued by the state “in the next several weeks.”
“The Navy took one year to notify us, through the whole fishing season,” he said.
“Did they send it by wagon train?” asked Ms. Esposito.
The Navy said in its April 29 response that it has “initiated a treatment project to reduce PFAS concentrations in Swan Pond,” and is “conducting a comprehensive investigation into the presence of 1,4‑dioxane, with sampling planned to start in 2027.”
More Trouble for the Peconic River
Mr. Rapiejko said the county has also just tested areas of the upper Peconic River for several perfluorinated compounds again, after collecting troubling samples in April of 2024.
He said during the sampling in March 2026, the river water showed elevated concentrations of PFOS, while groundwater sampled at the banks of the river showed “pretty significant PFAS contamination.”
Another perfluorinated compound, PFNA, showed concentrations of 3,290 parts per trillion in 2024 and 2,114 ppt in 2026, he said.
The New York drinking water standard for PFAS and PFOS, the two most common of these compounds, is 10 parts per trillion.
Mr. Rapiejko said one sampling site in the river had 4 ppt of PFOA in 2024, but this year had 100 ppt.
“We don’t typically see high concentrations in surface waters,” he said. “There are a lot of variables, but it’s not good that they were higher.”
He added that surveys of people fishing in the river have found that “a substantial number of people eat fish in the Peconic River, and for a number of them it’s their only source of protein.”
He added that documenting that people are eating the fish will be important in the county’s effort to get the Navy to take the issue seriously.
“If it’s contaminated, and you throw it back, there’s no risk to you,” he said. “But the exposure is if you eat it. I’ve seen before where they [polluters] say nobody’s eating the fish. They can’t say that here.”
“Go Army” Wells
Over the past several years, the Navy and the Suffolk County Health Department have done “split sampling” of 21 Navy test wells placed on Suffolk County parkland in the midst of the groundwater plumes, which have contained numerous chemicals, including 1,4 dioxane, volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and perfluorinated compounds. One of those plumes had already been treated, with some success, for VOCs.
This agreement had allowed the Health Department to use the Navy’s water samples to do its own battery of testing, which Mr. Rapiejko said is far more comprehensive than the Navy’s testing.
Mr. Rapiejko said the Navy notified the Health Department in 2024 that it planned to sample its wells on county parkland again, but this time said “you have to sample only what we’re sampling, and you have to agree to that in writing.” He added that the Navy insisted the Health Department send its samples to a Department of Defense-approved laboratory, even though the Health Department has its own lab.
“We decided to drill a well next to every one of the Navy’s wells,” he said, adding that the county’s new wells will be “profile wells” that are able to test water at different depths in the water table, because plumes tend to sink deeper as they move farther from the source, and testing of just one level of the groundwater may not find the contamination.
Mr. Rapiejko said Mr. Romaine, the County Executive, was out with the county well-drillers last week as they drilled the wells, and the Health Department considered spray painting “Go Army” on their well covers.
The Navy said in its April 29 statement that “county private drinking water well results are consistent with the Navy’s sampling results: no private drinking water wells within the Navy’s designated testing areas contained concentrations that exceed the relevant action threshold.”
Clean-Up List
Mr. Rapiejko outlined six steps the county wants to see the Navy take to fix the problem, including “installing groundwater treatment as an interim measure to cut off and prevent additional PFAS and 1,4 dioxane from entering the Peconic River,” testing fish at multiple sites, and further investigating three other areas of concern around the EPCAL site, including a former tire burning site, an area that was leased to the Wading River Fire Department for training, and an area near a Riverhead Water District well field.”
He also recommended the Navy “perform annual private well sampling for all the sites identified.” He said the Navy should “analyze for all contaminants of concern, not one at a time,” and added that he’d never seen such sampling methodology in more than 20 years of investigating Superfund sites.”
Over the past several years, the towns of Manorville and Riverhead, along with Suffolk County and the Suffolk County Water Authority, have worked to install public water mains in nearby areas where private wells were found to be contaminated by perfluorinated compounds, projects costing a total of $22.3 million to connect 120 properties, none of which was paid for by the Navy.
The Power of Showing Up
“A lot of people in this room might have public water in their homes, but that was just the beginning,” said Kelly McClinchy, a RAB member who led the campaign for public water. “We’re not there yet. What caused us to need public water is still happening. It hasn’t been addressed sufficiently. We have to show up because the reason we have water is because we showed up.”
She said the next RAB meeting is expected to be held virtually the first week in June. Members of the public can attend RAB meetings, and the Navy said April 29 that “community members are encouraged to attend” the June RAB meeting.
“We can no longer wait for the Navy to act. We need our federal representatives to get on this,” said Ms. Esposito, from Citizens Campaign for the Environment. “It’s not rocket science, but they have to want to do it. It should be done expeditiously. We want clean water, and we should expect that from the Navy. The Navy is supposed to be protecting us.”
“The Navy is only going to listen to the County Health Department so much,” said Mr. Rapiejko. “They’re going to listen to their federal elected officials. They really hold the purse strings. I recommend everyone write to your congressmen and senators. They have connections to the Navy.”
“We need to see movement, or we’re going to exercise the options we have,” said Mr. Romaine. “We’re asking to protect the health and well-being of the citizens that live around here.”