Lee Zeldin introduced himself to EPA staff last year as someone who had experienced first-hand the risks some U.S. communities face from climate change.
In his first speech to agency staff in February 2025, the newly confirmed administrator said his home town on Long Island “got crushed” during Hurricane Sandy in 2012.
Suffolk County Executive Edward P. Romaine fired a shot across the U.S. Navy's bow last week.
At a community meeting in Calverton, Romaine threatened to sue because two toxic plumes at the former Naval Weapons Industrial Reserve Plant are spreading forever chemicals, or PFAS, and endangering the region's water. The Navy has delayed cleanup, Romaine said.
Brookhaven's plan to clean up a 4-mile-long toxic plume that runs through residential neighborhoods south of the landfill calls for hooking up more homes to public water systems and expanding a drinking water monitoring program — but closing the landfill still would have to wait two more years.
Suffolk County officials are pointing to the Navy’s cleanup of the Bethpage plume as a precedent — and warning they expect the same urgency in Calverton, where county testing shows contamination from the former Navy-owned Grumman manufacturing site continues to move through groundwater, surface water and fish habitat while federal cleanup efforts remain largely in the study phase.
Last summer, more than a hundred and fifty staff members at the Environmental Protection Agency sent a letter to the agency’s head, Lee Zeldin, outlining their concerns about his leadership. Topping the list was Zeldin’s naked partisanship. The administrator often used his official communications to trash Democrats. This “politicized messaging,” the letter said, was undermining trust in the agency. So, too, were Zeldin’s gutting of the E.P.A.’s research division and his tendency to ignore the findings of its scientists. The missive noted that it reflected the staffers’ personal, rather than professional, opinions, and had been written on their own time. It ended by urging Zeldin to “correct course.”
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.
Off the coast of Long Island, a new chapter in the region’s energy future is already spinning.
The South Fork Wind project — the first utility-scale offshore wind farm serving New York — is now delivering electricity to the East End, demonstrating that offshore wind is no longer theoretical. It’s operating infrastructure.
“Forever chemicals” known as PFAS — cancer-causing pollutants already found in Long Island groundwater — have been detected in vegetables purchased from farm stands across the North and South forks, according to a new study by Stony Brook University.
U.S. Rep. Tom Suozzi stood along the waterfront in Glen Cove on Tuesday, Feb. 17, warning that Long Islanders cannot afford to ignore what he described as a sweeping rollback of federal climate protections.
“Climate change is real,” Suozzi repeated several times during the news conference, held just days after President Donald Trump and the Environmental Protection Agency rescinded the 2009 “endangerment finding,” a policy that concluded greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare.
The Calverton Restoration Advisory Board has announced plans to host its own public meeting where the Suffolk County Health Department can present its independent testing data of private wells at the former Grumman site to the residents, after the U.S. Navy declined to have county officials present its findings.
WASHINGTON — Environmentalists raised alarms Thursday after the Environmental Protection Agency — led by Long Island native Lee Zeldin — repealed an Obama-era legal finding that has been used for 17 years to regulate and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Without the provision, known as the endangerment finding, environmental advocates contend Long Island’s 2.2 million gas-powered vehicles — the state’s largest source of greenhouse gases — could be contributing more carbon to the atmosphere. Some energy industry groups and conservative policy groups, however, celebrated Zeldin's announcement.
Long Island’s drinking water supply is solely dependent on aquifers. Sarah Meyland, a retired professor at the New York Institute of Technology, spoke about the impacts of chronic water depletion on the region’s water supply.
Governor Kathy Hochul today announced the State’s $3.8 billion investment in local water infrastructure projects during State Fiscal Year 2025. A newly released New York State Clean Water Funding Report shows that New York delivered $1.1 billion in water quality grants in a single fiscal year, significantly reducing costs for local governments, families and businesses. Governor Hochul’s administration is providing unprecedented support to advance drinking water, wastewater and stormwater upgrades that are protecting public health and the environment, building community resiliency, improving quality of life and creating good-paying jobs.
Suffolk County Legislator Steven Englebright (D-Setauket) invited Citizens Campaign for the Environment co-founder Adrienne Esposito and CCE board and staff members to the Suffolk County Legislature’s Nov. 25th General Meeting to honor them for 40 years of advocacy. Presiding Officer Kevin McCaffrey (R-Lindenhurst) joined Englebright at the podium, where the CCE team received a proclamation along with flowers and balloons.
Low-oxygen areas in Long Island Sound dropped last summer to the smallest footprint recorded in nearly 40 years, according to data from Connecticut’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.
"This is great news," said Adrienne Esposito, executive director of Citizens Campaign for the Environment in Farmingdale. "This is what happens when you have reliable funding, meaningful collaboration, strong public support, and good science — all working together."
Experts warn New York could face energy shortages as early as 2027.
Offshore wind offers clean, reliable power and price stability.
South Fork Wind Farm already powers 70,000 Long Island homes.
Upgraded transmission and new wind projects are urgently needed.
This fall, New Yorkers across the state showed up and spoke up to demand clean, affordable, reliable, safe and healthy energy infrastructure during the state’s energy plan hearings. Tragically, the Trump administration is wreaking havoc on our nation’s clean energy progress, making it more important than ever for New York to step up and lead the way to the sustainable, resilient system we need. Right now, we’re not on track.
