Asbestos-filled trailers in Islip Terrace yard still not cleaned up
Andrew Sirico shows one of the trailers containing asbestos waste on his rental property in Islip Terrace in October. Credit: Johnny Milano
Months after an Islip Terrace man raised alarms to several state agencies about toxic asbestos waste dumped in his yard from an MTA construction site in New York City, all of the material remains exactly where it was.
Andy Sirico said despite complaints to the state Department of Environmental Conservation, the Department of Labor, the Suffolk district attorney’s office and Islip Town, none of the two trailer loads of asbestos bags and other waste material has been removed.
"Not one thing has been done to the property," Sirico said.
DEC "continues to engage the parties involved to help ensure compliance with state requirements and facilitate the proper cleanup of this property to protect public health," the agency said in a statement Wednesday.
Sirico said that weeks after promises were made last fall to start plans to remove the material, he went back to the DEC, which he’d first called to complain about the mess in August.
In a December letter to DEC commissioner Basil Seggos, a desperate Sirico wrote, "It has been six months since I called the DEC to help remedy this huge, dangerous problem that is so close to our living space and is in a regular trailer, not air tight."
He noted he was living with his four children in the rental home, which "was to be a nice clean safe place for family, and I’m stuck in worry and anxiety for six months now. Please help."
In response, the DEC sent a Jan. 19 letter from a regional attorney on Seggos’ behalf that said attorneys for all parties were working toward a needed "sampling event" of the contents of the trailers, after Sirico had terminated one in November. "I would encourage you to work with your attorney on arrangements for sampling to take place so that removal and proper disposal can be accomplished as soon as possible," the letter said.
Sirico said he’d terminated the November sampling at the behest of the state Department of Labor, which had advised him not to allow anyone into the trailers, which contain more than 200 bags of asbestos construction debris and even a wholly contained office contaminated with asbestos. "I have a letter from the Department of Labor saying, 'Don’t open the trailers,' " he said.
Sirico said he was disappointed by the agency’s response. "I think they’re supposed to do this themselves," he said, when toxic waste from a state construction site is found in a residential neighborhood. "I guess the DEC just doesn’t care about it. It’s not important to them. I don’t know where else to turn to get some action."
The DEC said its "investigation is ongoing."
"Under DEC oversight, the property owner is working to gain access to the property to conduct the necessary air sampling required for asbestos abatement," the agency said.
Robert Dooley, an attorney for homeowner Diana Honeycutt, whose family previously owned an enviromental remediation company, Coastal Environmental Group, in an email Wednesday said he’s continuing a court action to evict Sirico and his family because "he refused access to the containers and stopped paying rent for the house." The action also seeks court help in gaining access to the trailers.
In a Feb. 5 letter to Suffolk County District Court Judge Cheryl Helfer, Dooley argued that his client "repeatedly requested access" to perform an assessment on the containers, but that Sirico ultimately prevented a full investigation. The letter requests a court order mandating that Sirico provide access to the containers, for which he holds keys to several locks. The letter also says Sirico has rejected "multiple" proposals to address the asbestos.
"Permitting the asbestos to remain without consequence ... is an unnecessary risk to the public and immediate community," Dooley wrote, though he added it was the landlord’s position that as long as the material remains in bags in the containers it "does not pose a known risk."
Just how the material arrived at the home is another matter.
MTA spokesman Tim Minton, in response to Newsday questions, said at the time the MTA waste was left at the home, more than five years ago, the agency did not yet have a process in place for verifying that the specific waste made its way on schedule to the proper waste disposal facility for contaminated construction debris. MTA paid Coastal Environmental Group, the contractor, $1.8 million between 2010 and 2016 for "various waste asbestos removal and disposal" projects.
A new procedure has since been instituted, Minton said.
"The MTA has a process to verify that construction waste in the class of asbestos is confirmed to have been delivered to a proper disposal site in a timely manner," he said in a prepared statement. "However, that was not yet in place more than five years ago when Coastal Environmental failed to properly do the job taxpayers paid them to do. This appears to have been an appalling breach of the public trust..."
A DEC report of one attempt by the state agency and an outside firm conducting an inspection said Sirico "had concerns relating to disturbing material at [the] site and potentially increasing exposure to presumed asbestos" in ultimately blocking access.
Sirico has indicated in the past that the site should be sealed off with plastic sheathing and filtered air so that disturbing the material won't release asbestos into the open air.
In its statement to Newsday, the DEC blamed Sirico for "preventing" an attempt to sample in November. The agency said its Jan. 19 letter included "a formal request to the tenant to contact the property owner’s attorney so that the necessary sampling can be scheduled."
No date for that sampling has been set.
Mark Harrington, a Newsday reporter since 1999, covers energy, wineries, Indian affairs and fisheries.
