Oyster Bay suit: Northrop Grumman 'concealed' extent of heavy metal contamination at Bethpage Community Park

After the discovery of chemical drums at Bethpage Community Park last year, Oyster Bay officials worried about the presence of hexavalent chromium, a cancer-causing toxin, in the soil near the drums, federal court records show.

They were concerned by what they saw: yellow and green sludge, a sign of chromium contamination, according to a filing in the town's lawsuit against Northrop Grumman, which seeks to accelerate and widen the scope of the plan to clean up the 18-acre property Grumman Aerospace used as a toxic dumping grounds for decades.

The town accused the company of failing to test for the visibly discolored soil, records show.

After Oyster Bay hired a laboratory to test the neon-colored material, the results showed "alarming" and "extremely high levels of hexavalent chromium," according to the town's complaint. 

The lab results have added to the town's concerns about contamination at Bethpage Community Park. It has become a new point of contention in the federal lawsuit, which has stretched nearly two years and seeks to hold Grumman responsible for cleaning up a menu of toxic chemicals on the site. An agreement, struck in 2013, requires Northrop Grumman to remediate the property but Oyster Bay says the company hasn't moved quickly and its plan isn't thorough enough.

The lawsuit, first filed in September 2023, previously focused on a range of contaminants including trichloroethylene, or TCE, toluene and cadmium. But town officials, in court filings over the summer, have sharpened their focus on hexavalent chromium. Oyster Bay has accused the company of concealing the extent of hexavalent chromium contamination for decades and following the drums' discovery in March and April 2024.

Lawyers for Northrop Grumman have denied the town's claims and say a flurry of motions from Oyster Bay have delayed the overall cleanup effort.

A federal judge recently allowed the town to amend its lawsuit to make new claims about hexavalent chromium and, on Tuesday, denied Northrop Grumman's bid to exclude those allegations.

"The whole idea of the lawsuit is to get the polluter to clean up their mess," Oyster Bay Supervisor Joseph Saladino said in a phone interview. "We want to make sure that all of the items are cleaned up, and this is one of the contaminants that have been found there."

State officials recently challenged some of the town's claims, noting hexavalent chromium was first discovered at the property years ago, before the drums were discovered. The state Department of Environmental Conservation, in a letter to the town, said Northrop Grumman did not ignore "obvious evidence of suspected contaminated materials." 

Lawyers for Northrop Grumman said in court papers the company has "long been on top of hexavalent chromium, which will be addressed as part of the final remedial plan for the Park once the Town stops wasting time and money on frivolous claims and comes to the negotiating table."

The company did not respond to a request for comment. 

Town samples ordered

Hexavalent chromium, a human carcinogen, is used in industrial settings such as welding and metal coating, according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. It is one of the forms of chromium, a metallic element. Exposure to hexavalent chromium can cause harm to the respiratory system, kidneys, liver, skin and eyes, according to the federal agency. It is one of the chemicals that lawyers for Bethpage residents have alleged, in a pending federal class-action lawsuit against Northrop Grumman, has contributed to adverse health effects, Newsday has reported. 

The town's testing over the past year, near the center of the park's cordoned-off ballfield area, detected hexavalent chromium at "levels far" in excess of state standards, said Brian Nevin, a town spokesman, in an emailed statement. 

Northrop Grumman argued it shouldn't be part of a new legal claim because the town should've known it was already there more than a decade ago.

Attorneys for Northrop Grumman in their filing cited a 2011 remedial investigation report, which "explicitly states that [the company] tested both soil and groundwater for hexavalent chromium at the park." 

Therefore, the town "should have known there was hexavalent chromium in the Park no later than 2012," the company's filing said.

Northrop Grumman also said the town's claims were "time-barred" and beyond what the court allowed the town to allege in court.

But on Tuesday, Judge Nusrat Choudhury ruled the town's allegations were "within the scope" of the court's order and were not too late. The judge's order allows the town to "raise any factual allegations relating to the alleged presence of hexavalent chromium at the Park."

Push to test

In September 2024, a lawyer for Northrop Grumman said in a letter the company would not test at the site for hexavalent chromium.

The attorney noted in a letter to a town's lawyer, which was filed in court: "It is well settled that under normal environmental conditions, hexavalent chromium will be reduced over time to trivalent chromium in the presence of soil organic matter ..."

Trivalent chromium is a much less toxic form of the metallic element.

In November, the DEC urged Northrop Grumman to file a more aggressive plan to test for hexavalent chromium. Grumman agreed to test the soil, which occurred between March and June, according to the DEC.

The testing detected 93 new samples of hexavalent chromium at the park, according to the DEC. The agency said in the 2000s, there were 264 soil samples containing hexavalent chromium at the property.

The company has not declined any request from the DEC to test for hexavalent chromium, the DEC said in an email. 

The DEC has contested some of Oyster Bay's claims.

In August, the DEC told Oyster Bay in a letter that the town's claim Northrop Grumman ignored materials suspected to be contaminated "is not accurate."

DEC officials said the 2013 Record of Decision, which regulates Northrop Grumman's cleanup of the site, showed overall chromium at higher levels than the town's recent sampling.

The DEC said in an Aug. 12 letter the high level of hexavalent chromium at the park "was already known based on sampling completed during the remedial investigation." 

Still, the DEC said it would ask Northrop Grumman to test the park's water containment system for hexavalent chromium.

Sampling unde r review

Oyster Bay and Northrop Grumman must agree on a plan to remove polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, from the soil before the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency can sign off on a final remediation plan.

"We know Grumman used this in its manufacturing processes in Bethpage. We know it's highly toxic," said Adrienne Esposito, executive director of Citizens Campaign for the Environment. 

Grumman Aerospace, the corporate predecessor to Northrop Grumman, donated the area now known as Bethpage Community Park to Oyster Bay in 1962. The park's ballfield section has been closed since May 2002 following the discovery of toxic chemicals there. 

Hexavalent chromium was the focus of a pollution lawsuit featured in the movie "Erin Brockovich." The 2000 film depicted efforts by the residents of Hinkley, California, to prove their utility company had contaminated the drinking water, including with hexavalent chromium. Pacific Gas & Electric Co. agreed to pay a $333 million settlement, according to news reports at the time.

The chemical was recently detected at "elevated levels" in air samples at wildfire cleanup zones in California following the January wildfires that blazed through Los Angeles County, according to a preliminary study by researchers at the University of California, Davis.

Victor Huang, chemistry department chair at Farmingdale State College, said hexavalent chromium has been used widely for its anti-corrosion properties. 

"That's why it comes in with Grumman," Huang said in a phone interview, "because airplanes use hexavalent chromium extensively as an anti-corroding coating."

The heavy metal "has serious toxic issues," Huang said, and has been linked to lung cancer and other organ-related illnesses. 

Saladino said regular testing by the Bethpage Water District and Nassau County Health Department ensures the tap water is safe to drink, but hexavalent chromium can still leach into the aquifer and could expand a plume that is slowly moving south on Long Island. 

"This is a mess that was made by Grumman, and it is their ethical responsibility to clean it up and pay for it," Saladino said. 

The DEC said it is reviewing the soil sampling reports alongside the Environmental Protection Agency.

By Joseph Ostapiuk

joseph.ostapiuk@newsday.com@OstapiukJ