More than one-third of Long Island schools had at least one water fixture used for drinking or cooking that exceeded the state's standard for lead, according to a new report.
Across Nassau and Suffolk, 1,031 of 22,345 fixtures tested — about 4.6% — exceeded the state standard of 5 parts per billion for lead levels in school drinking or cooking water, according to a study conducted by the Environment America Research & Policy Center, New York Public Interest Research Group and Frontier Group.
Brookhaven faces a November deadline to fix plans for cleaning up a toxic plume south of the town's landfill after the state faulted them for containing a series of errors.
The state Department of Environmental Conservation said it could not accept Brookhaven's draft report outlining five potential cleanup proposals. In an Aug. 5 letter to the town, the DEC said Brookhaven's plan was riddled with factual and mathematical errors.
ingston, NY — More than 100 organizations and 700 individuals have urged New York State to strengthen proposed regulations governing the management and treatment of landfill leachate as the public comment period comes to a close on September 9, 2026.
Mary Fontana doesn’t trust the water that comes out of the tap in her upstate New York home. Nor do most of her neighbors in Tupper Lake, an Adirondacks village where she is mayor.
“When I’m putting my kid in the bathtub at the end of the night, when the tub fills up with rust-colored water, it’s really hard to look at that and not think that you’re doing some kind of harm,” said Fontana, who has pushed the state for help cleaning up her village’s water.
A bill aimed at strengthening drinking water protections in New York is now awaiting action from Gov. Kathy Hochul.
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and local officials are calling on the U.S. Navy to expedite cleanup efforts at a former development site and of a toxic groundwater plume that is inching toward the Peconic Bay.
Schumer appeared in Calverton Thursday to call on the U.S. Navy to resume testing of the plume at Enterprise Park after the Navy pushed back a deadline 10 years to 2039, to conclude its assessment and come up with a plan to clean up contaminants from the former Grumman weapons plant.
“We represent over 2,000 individuals from Nassau and Suffolk counties who have developed four types of cancer — liver, kidney, thyroid and testicular cancers — and also ulcerative colitis, in litigation involving PFAS,” said Jeffrey Guzman, a founding member of a law firm based on Wall Street in Manhattan, Krentsel Guzman Herbert.
The Environmental Protection Agency has named Nicole “Nikki” Tachiki as the new director of the Long Island Sound Partnership, placing a longtime agency scientist and program planner at the helm of a regional effort focused on improving the health of the Long Island Sound and the communities that surround it.
A life scientist with the Environmental Protection Agency is the new leader of an interagency program created to improve the health of Long Island Sound.
Nicole Tachiki, named acting director of the EPA's Long Island Sound office in 2025, is now in charge of Long Island Sound Partnership, which began in 1985 as the Long Island Sound Study — an EPA-run effort in collaboration with New York and Connecticut aimed at cleaning up the Sound.
Key Points
Riverhead is working on draft revisions to its battery energy storage code.
The discussion follows PFAS detections in public water wells near the 2023 East Hampton BESS fire site.
SCWA says PFPrA was detected in water that migrated from the fire; state officials say the source remains under investigation.
Rothwell opposes a moratorium but wants runoff containment and removal of utility-scale BESS from Residence A-80 zoning.
Several Suffolk towns have adopted or extended BESS moratoria while reviewing local rules.
New York attorney general Letitia James sued chemical manufacturers (PDF) 3M, DuPont, Corteva, Chemours, and EIDP in state court on July 9 for their role in contributing to pollution and other alleged harms from the use of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in consumer products.
A U.S. Navy official made a stunning admission last month, one that residents and Suffolk County officials had already suspected. For over a year the Navy withheld from the public test results that found dangerously high levels of the chemical PFOS in fish and the waters in Swan Pond near the former Naval Weapons Industrial Reserve Plant in Calverton.
As the mercury rises, the Long Island Water Conference is urging residents to conserve water in ways that are good for the environment and your wallet.
With Long Island already classified by the federal government as being in a severe drought , the organization is encouraging residents to save water, both in the short and long term. LIWC represents the major public and private water suppliers that provide drinking water to almost 90% of the island's population.
The East Hampton Energy Storage Center, which caught fire in 2023, and as a result, according to a recent lawsuit filed by the Suffolk County Water Authority, leaked perfluoropropionic acid, a so-called “forever chemical,” into the groundwater and the water authority’s nearby wells is not unique in the Town of East Hampton.
In the wake of pressure from Suffolk County to clean up numerous environmental issues emanating from the former Grumman plant in Calverton, consultants for the U.S. Navy have unveiled a plan to capture a groundwater plume of the emerging contaminants PFAS that is believed to be spreading toward a nearby lake and the Peconic River.
ALBANY — The recently passed state budget includes more money for top environmental issues, like clean water, protecting Long Island’s estuaries, increasing renewable energy sources and weaning the state off fossil fuels.
But the changes to the state’s landmark climate law Gov. Kathy Hochul muscled through cast a pall over other progress environmentalists felt they made.
