State orders cleanup at greenhouse site

Despite their refusal, the former and current owners of the Bianchi/Weiss Greenhouses site in East Patchogue must pay millions of dollars to have the contaminated property cleaned, state regulators have ruled.

Should the cleanup not occur in a timely fashion, state officials have threatened to take the three parties to court.

The 14-acre site, once the country's largest producer of gardenias, was found in 2006 to have unacceptably high levels of Chlordane, a toxic pesticide that is harmful to the human nervous system and causes gastrointestinal distress. The discovery stopped site owner Henron Development of Ronkonkoma from redeveloping the land as a residential subdivision.

The state Department of Environmental Conservation ruled last month that Henron and two former operators, Bianchi Orchards and Kirk Weiss Greenhouses, must shoulder the estimated $7.89 million cost of remediating the site, a commercial nursery from 1929 to 2005.

Henron representatives said the work is not the company's responsibility because the contamination occurred before it acquired the land on Orchard Road in the mid-2000s. The other two parties have also declined to clean the site, the DEC says.

Charsleissa King, a spokeswoman for the DEC, said all three parties are responsible for the cleanup. The report indicates that all parties will be "subject to legal actions by the state for recovery of all response costs" if the state has to pay for the work.

The DEC's decision was heralded by neighbors and civic activists concerned about the presence of the Superfund site.

Peter Ross, who lives across the street with his wife Pat, said he looks forward to his neighborhood losing a Superfund site. "Let's hope they do it right," Ross said.

Pat Ross said she would like the state to check surrounding areas for contamination, too. "It makes sense to me that the adjacent properties should be investigated and not wait until someone raises a flag," she said.

Tom Berger, a member of Focus East Patchogue, the community's dominant civic group, said of the Orchard Road site, "Anybody here is going to want it cleaned up. That's what we want for all of Patchogue."

But Henry Schreiber, president of Henron, said his company does not intend to pay. "We're the aggrieved portion. We had nothing to do with [the contamination]," he said.

Attempts to reach Bianchi and Weiss were not successful.

Asked whether the parties could appeal, King said, "Our decision only identifies potentially responsible parties. Final determinations are made in court."

The site is fenced, overgrown and in the middle of a residential area. Vegetation cracks through unused pavement, and signs warn the site is closed to visitors. Remediation is long overdue, said Tim Mazzei, the Brookhaven Town councilman who represents the area. "It's been a disaster for a long time, and I'm glad to hear that the state's going to make them clean it up."