Datre trucks dumped material in Islandia, builders testify

Three contractors watched as trucks owned by Thomas Datre Jr. dumped loads of dirt with concrete, brick and rebar at an Islandia development in 2013 but when they asked the man’s father about it, he said the fill was clean, according to court testimony Thursday in Central Islip.

Thomas Datre Sr., then the president of the development group coordinating a volunteer construction effort at the site, was certain the loads — which the contractors also said contained recycled concrete aggregate, or RCA — were on the up and up, one of the witnesses testified.

But Datre Sr. also said he had only limited knowledge of his son’s work at the Veterans Way development, the contractor told Assistant District Attorney Michelle Pitman during questioning Thursday.

“Tom made it a point to tell us . . . that his son’s business is his own and he doesn’t really know what his son does,” said Ira Tane, owner of a building company working on the six-home subdivision, describing to prosecutors a meeting with Datre Sr. to air concerns about the dumping.

“At the same time, Tom assured all of us in the room that the fill was clean,” Tane testified. “He guaranteed it was clean.”

Tane, two other contractors and the project’s site manager took the stand Thursday in the ongoing dumping trial of the father and son, accused in a scheme to dump truckloads of contaminated material at four sites in Islip Town and Deer Park in Babylon Town.

The Datres are on trial in state Supreme Court in Central Islip, charged with criminal mischief; endangering public health, safety or the environment; and operating a solid-waste management facility without a permit.

They are among six indicted in what prosecutors have said was a concerted effort to dump tens of thousands of tons of contaminated construction materials at the Veterans Way site; Roberto Clemente Park in Brentwood; a private, 1-acre lot on Islip Avenue in Central Islip; and a sensitive wetland in Deer Park in Babylon Town.

The materials — picked up from demolition sites in Brooklyn and Queens and trucked to Suffolk — contained lead, asbestos, petroleum-based products, heavy metals and pesticides, said Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota when he announced the indictments in December 2014. At the time, Spota described the actions of the six as a “stark portrait of greed, abuse of power and corruption.”

Two rounds of cleanup work has been done at Veterans Way. In December 2014, more than 1,700 cubic yards of contaminated material was removed. Excavations were also completed in December 2015 in front of two homes where removed fill showed levels of semi-volatile organic compounds that exceeded state environmental limits.

In court Thursday, Tane and the two other builders on the Islandia site testified that after seeing Datre Jr.’s truck dump the material, they made their concerns known in meetings with Datre Sr. and Robert Davis, a past president and board member of the Long Island Builders Institute, who also was overseeing the project.

SEE PHOTOSIslip dumping scandal: A timeline

At the 2013 groundbreaking for the development, it was hailed as a way for veterans returning from Afghanistan and Iraq to gain access to affordable housing.

Datre Sr. was president of the Long Island Home Builders Care Development Corporation, the charitable arm of the institute, which coordinated construction. Contractors donated their services, equipment and materials so the homes could be sold to the veterans for half the market rate. The veterans and their families received keys to their new homes after construction was completed that year.

During their cross-examination of the builders Thursday, defense attorneys asked if they ever saw other contractors besides Datre Jr. bring fill to the site; their knowledge of the difference between clean and contaminated fill; and if they were aware state environmental rules permit the use of fill with rocks, concrete, boulders, brick and glass.

“I wouldn’t have used it on any of my projects,” Ryan said of the material during a sometimes testy exchange with Datre Jr.’s defense attorney, Kevin Kearon. “It’s just not ethical.”

Davis was asked by Datre Sr.’s defense attorney, Andrew Campanelli, if he thought what he saw was contaminated.

“Absolutely not,” Davis answered. He also testified RCA, which contains oil, a petroleum product, is an industry standard material used under asphalt. Other contractors besides Datre Jr. also dumped fill, RCA and topsoil at the site, he said.

None of the truckloads underwent environmental or scientific testing, Davis told Campanelli, adding he did not know the names of the other companies that delivered materials.