Babylon Town to pay $1.85M to settle stormwater sump suit

Babylon Town will pay $1.85 million to a Great Neck-based construction company to settle litigation over nonpayment for a stormwater sump in the town landfill that collapsed as it was being built.

The engineering firm hired by the town to design the project will pay Babylon $875,000.

No parties admitted fault in the agreement, which the town board approved Tuesday.

Great Neck-based Galvin Brothers began construction of what it said was the largest underground stormwater detention system ever built in 2009, using more than 91,000 plastic “rain tank boxes.”

When many of those were found to have collapsed, the town stopped making payments on the $15 million project. Galvin Brothers responded by suing the town in New York State Supreme Court for breach of contract. Amid the blizzard of countersuits and third-party actions that followed, the town also sued New Hyde Park-based Kosuri Engineering.

The town’s payment to Galvin amounts to what it owed anyway for completed work, town officials said.

Officials said this week that they will pursue a different plan for landfill construction that will still bring the project in under budget, and that any broken plastic boxes will be recycled.