New York State sues Jericho industrial site owner for contamination cleanup costs

New York State has filed a federal lawsuit against the owner of an industrial site in Jericho, seeking to recover millions of dollars to clean up soil and groundwater contaminated decades ago with PCEs.

The 3.8 acre property, at 601-603 Cantiague Rock Rd., was acquired by Richmond Associates, a real-estate holding firm, in 1998; under the Superfund law, property owners can be held liable for contamination even if they did not cause it.

The state has already spent more than $5 million on investigations on the site, and estimates the cost of the cleanup will be more than $14 million. The suit seeks an award of all future remediation expenses.

A number associated with Richmond Associates was not in service. No attorney was listed in court documents for the company.

The contamination began in the late 1960s or 1970s, when a textile finishing and printing business called Solvent Finishers was using as much as 11,000 gallons a year of tetrachloroethylene or perchloroethylene, or PCE, to dry clean fabrics, according to the state Department of Environmental Conservation’s complaint filed July 9 in the Eastern District of New York.

The business "generated significant quantities of PCE-contaminated wastewater, which it discharged directly into the ground," the DEC complaint said. The company operated on the site until 1982.

DEC’s site investigations starting in 2007 found "significant PCE contamination in the soil, groundwater, soil vapor, and indoor air," the complaint said. The agency’s testing found the chemical had leached as far as 85 feet below the surface of the ground, and that concentrations in some places reached 7,300 parts per million. The DEC’s cleanup "objective" is 1.3 parts per million.

Samples of groundwater under the site showed PCE concentrations as high as 300,000 parts per billion — 60,000 times higher than the DEC standard of 5 parts per billion, according to the suit. Testing also showed the plume of groundwater pollution had drifted 4,000 feet south of the property, and that concentrations there reached 81,000 parts per billion.

The agency ultimately added the site to the state Superfund list and began to develop a plan to remediate it.

A company called Rubies, which sells Halloween costumes, occupies the 58,000-square-foot building on the site but is not named in the suit.

The property is across the street from an elementary school and the closest residential house is 400 feet away. A well field for the Hicksville Water District is about 2.18 miles southeast of the Solvent Finishers property.

Paul Granger, the Hicksville Water District superintendent, said the district is working with the DEC, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to track the Solvent Finishers spill, which is part of the wider contamination area known as the New Cassel Plume.

He said Hicksville has "installed wellhead treatment to protect water quality and is performing comprehensive lab testing" to monitor contaminants. 

Short-term exposure to PCE can cause respiratory problems, headaches and dizziness, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Long-term exposure can lead to kidney and liver dysfunction, problems with the immune system and with development and reproduction. The EPA also considers the chemical a probable carcinogen.