Federal EPA won't investigate Northport contamination, but will review findings

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will not investigate the contamination that led to the closing of Northport Middle School, a regional administrator said this week in a letter to Sen. Chuck Schumer, who earlier this month called for the agency to get involved.

Instead, the agency will review findings from the study done by PW Grosser Consulting Inc., the environmental firm hired by Northport-East Northport schools to study the grounds and air at the Middleville Road building.

The school has been closed since Jan. 23, after the firm found in two septic tanks high levels of benzene, a chemical that has been linked to causing cancers of blood cells, such as leukemia.

The EPA had a conference call Tuesday with the state Department of Health, the Suffolk County Department of Health Services, the state Department of Environmental Conservation and school district officials to discuss PWGC’s investigation of the hazardous chemicals, wrote EPA regional administrator Peter Lopez.

The agency found that a “parallel federal site investigation at Northport Middle School would not provide any new information,” Lopez said. “The efforts already conducted in addition to the work planned by the school district and PWGC is equivalent to the work that would be performed by EPA as part of a new site investigation.”

The benzene at the school was found in a septic tank connected to the kitchen and in another connected to the gymnasium, Superintendent Robert Banzer said in an email last month. The levels detected were “at an actionable level per the Suffolk County Department of Health Services,” Banzer said.

“We eagerly await the results of the current testing being done by the school district’s environmental contractor, and based on those results, we will urge EPA and state regulators to take any appropriate action to ensure the health and safety of our children and school workers," Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Friday in response to the federal agency's letter.

In addition to benzene, the firm had found elevated levels of mercury in cesspools outside the building, adjacent to the science classrooms. About 660 sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade students were moved to other school buildings in the district.

The findings came as the New York State Department of Health began to investigate cancer occurrence in the school district after a health department review found a statistically significant higher rate of leukemia among the Northport High School Class of 2016, Newsday reported.

Following the reports, Schumer wrote a letter Feb. 3 to the EPA urging the agency to “utilize all of its available authority, as well as its considerable technical expertise, to quickly investigate and address the possible contamination."

After the firm’s findings are submitted, the EPA will review and provide technical assistance and support as needed, EPA spokesperson Elias Rodriguez said Friday.