Brookhaven plume cleanup plan calls for more water hookups, monitoring: A look at the options

Brookhaven's plan to clean up a 4-mile-long toxic plume that runs through residential neighborhoods south of the landfill calls for hooking up more homes to public water systems and expanding a drinking water monitoring program — but closing the landfill still would have to wait two more years.

The proposal was developed in recent months by town officials facing a Friday deadline to submit a cleanup plan to the state Department of Environmental Conservation. The water hookup and groundwater monitoring options were among five scenarios contained in a report released at a public meeting March 27 at Brookhaven Town Hall.

In choosing to focus on those two options, town officials also rejected suggestions by the DEC to consider far more costly alternatives, such as removing decades-old trash from the 192-acre landfill and shipping it elsewhere, or building groundwater treatment plants around the dump.

The DEC could take up to several months to approve the plan, an agency spokesperson said in an email.

Brookhaven Supervisor Dan Panico, in a phone interview, said the plan for expanded hookups and monitoring was the "most realistic" and most cost-effective option for cleaning the plume, though critics said it does not go far enough.

Panico said closing the landfill immediately would cost the town tens of millions of dollars in lost revenue and would have only a negligible effect on cleaning the plume. A DEC suggestion to excavate landfill trash and ship it off Long Island would have a price tag “likely in the billions” and would be logistically challenging, Panico added. 

The DEC ordered the cleanup plan last summer after a state-mandated report prepared by Brookhaven determined the 52-year-old landfill was a "contributing source" of toxic "forever chemicals" in the plume. The plume runs through communities such as Bellport and Brookhaven hamlet before emptying into Beaver Dam Creek and Bellport Bay.

Town officials have said the landfill probably will close in the summer of 2028, when it is expected to run out of capacity for incinerated trash from waste-to-energy plants run by New Jersey-based Reworld. The town is seeking a new five-year operating permit from the DEC to continue running the landfill after the current permit expires in July.

Brookhaven officials have said the plume poses little threat to residents because virtually all nearby homes already are customers of Suffolk County Water Authority, which screens drinking water before it enters homes.

Under the proposed plan, an unspecified number of homes farther from the plume would be added to the public water system, and efforts to monitor groundwater also would expand. Brookhaven estimated the combined plans would cost taxpayers a total of about $1.7 million.

Criticism for options

Critics have sounded off on Brookhaven's plan, however.

Some residents attending the March 27 meeting expressed skepticism that any of the town scenarios would help protect homeowners from drinking water contaminated with toxic chemicals such as PFAS.

"The town cannot be trusted to monitor," said community activist Lynne Maher, of Brookhaven hamlet. She added the projected high costs for closing or excavating the landfill sounded like "scare tactics."

Adrienne Esposito, executive director of Farmingdale nonprofit Citizens Campaign for the Environment, called the town proposal “woefully anemic and dangerous," saying that additional monitoring and public water connections would fail to clean up the drinking water contamination that is already there.

Esposito called for Brookhaven to adopt a water extraction plan similar to one launched last fall in Bethpage to clean up a 4-mile-long plume emanating from the former Grumman Aerospace plant there.

“It’s done all over Long Island. It’s the best way to address the plumes,” she said in a phone interview.

Here are descriptions and cost estimates for the cleanup plans that had been weighed by the town, as outlined in the town report, which is posted on the town website.

The 2 options submitted to DEC

Water hookup expansion. Under the proposal, the Suffolk County Water Authority would pump water from aquifers outside the plume area to homes currently using private wells. Drinking water would be tested for contaminants.

The estimated construction cost is $100,000 for residential properties and $1.5 million for commercial properties. Tax increases would be $18 for residential properties, or 45 cents per year over 40 years, and $267 for commercial properties, or $6.68 per year over 40 years.

Enhanced groundwater monitoring. Monitoring wells would be installed to screen water coming from the landfill. The estimated construction cost is $83,000, and the tax increase for the average home is $207, or $10.35 per year for 20 years.

The 3 rejected options

Closing the landfill immediately. Under the scenario, the landfill would be shuttered now rather than in summer 2028 and capped with soil and synthetic lining. The estimated cost would be $27 million, and the town estimates it would lose $65 million in landfill revenue under the plan. Cost to the average homeowner would be $8,556, or $356.50 per year for 24 years.

Landfill excavation/reclamation. The plan called for reopening the oldest parts of the landfill and removing an estimated 32 million cubic yards of trash to be shipped elsewhere. Brookhaven officials said this option would "effectively extend the operations at the landfill for an additional 50 to 100 years." The estimated cost, however, would be exorbitant: $8.05 billion, and the tax increase for the average home would be $2.94 million, or $39,200 per year for 75 years.

Removing contaminated groundwater. This option called for the construction of a treatment plant to remove about 3.45 million gallons of the water per day, and remove toxic leachate from the water. The treated water would then be discharged into recharge basins. The estimated cost was $106 million, translating to a $43,351 tax increase for the average home or $1,083.78 per year for 40 years.

Panico said the town would consider the water extraction plan if requested to do so by the DEC.

“I’m not saying it wouldn’t work in Brookhaven,” he said. “If in fact it’s proven to be the alternative to provide the best means to ameliorate the issue, we will have a serious discussion with the State of New York" about how to fund the project.