Navy: Water treatment plant needed now

Increasing pollution levels at a former Navy manufacturing site in Levittown require quick construction of a water treatment plant -- without going through lengthy zoning approvals, Navy officials argued this week.

The Naval Facilities Engineering Command Mid-Atlantic detailed its plans at a town appeals board meeting Wednesday, but only to provide information, officials said. The Navy, as a branch of the U.S. government, is exempt from local zoning requirements, its representatives said.

"In the interest of disclosure, the U.S. Navy has decided to meet with the [Hempstead Town] building department and the community," said Richard Bivone, president of RMB Development Consultants Inc. in East Meadow. The "severity" of the situation required the Navy to take preventive measures, he said.

The site at 670 Seaman's Rd. is owned by Aqua New York Inc., which supplies drinking water to several municipalities. The former Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corp. assembled and tested aircraft for the Navy from the 1930s to 1990s, leaving an underground plume of industrial solvents.

"The Navy has taken responsibility for this," Lora Fly, remedial project manager for the Navy, said at the hearing.

In 2007, the level of the solvent trichloroethene in the groundwater ranged from none to 0.8 micrograms per liter. It has risen to 3.3 micrograms per liter, still below the federal allowable level of 5.0 micrograms per liter, officials said.

"What concerns us is that the levels are increasing," said Navy consultant David Brayack, of Tetra Tech Inc. in Norfolk, Va.

The nearly $5 million pump and filter plan includes temporary filters to be in place by April.

"We need the emergency pump up and running by April 1st," Aqua president Matthew Snyder said at the hearing. The company tests its water daily, he said.

But appeals board member Gerald Wright worried about oversight of the Navy project. "How are we going to know what they are doing will be for the safety of the community?" he asked.

The board will decide whether to allow the Navy to proceed without zoning approval.

The cleanup effort is the Navy's latest at former Grumman sites, including in Bethpage where contaminated groundwater is moving toward water district wells.