By Bob Balogh and Thomas Cogan

Photo Anthony Lombardo The 35-acre property at 42-02 56th Rd. in Maspeth known as Laurel Hill has been contaminated with hazardous waste for almost a century.

The 35-acre property at 42-02 56th Rd. in Maspeth known as Laurel Hill has been contaminated with hazardous waste for almost a century, as it was the site of various manufacturing operations involving aluminum, copper, copper sulfate, copper sulfate pentahydrate, nickel, phosphate and sulfuric acid. Now, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC), in conjunction with the New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH), has proposed a remedial action plan to address the problem. The cost of implementing such a plan is estimated at $18,672,000, with additional capital expenses of $12,052,000.

Representatives from both state agencies presented strategies for cleaning up the site at a public meeting held last Thursday night at the Sunnyside Community Service Center. In attendance were over 70 people, many of whom were members of local community boards.

NYDEC Project Managers Dennis Wolterding and Shaminder Chawla, along with Stephanie Selmer from the NYSDOH, coordinated the presentation, detailing six alternatives designed to remedy the contaminated soils and groundwater at the site. The Laurel Hill site (also referred to as the Phelps Dodge site) is a Class 2 inactive hazardous waste disposal site, meaning that a significant threat to the public health and/or the environment exists and action must be taken to correct it.

Wolterding said that the NYSDEC favors Alternative 5, which calls for physical containment of soils with a site-specific cap, hot spot removal of PCB and petroleum-contaminated soil with off-site disposal, a groundwater extraction containment treatment system, and long-term groundwater monitoring. "The department believes it to be the appropriate and protective remedy for cleaning up the site," Wolterding said. Capping the area with concrete and asphalt would isolate soils with chemical concentrations exceeding limits for the safety of the public and the environment. Also, the cap would reduce infiltration of surface water through contaminated unsat$18.6 Cleanup Plan For Phelps Dodge Site Airedurated soils, which would reduce potential leeching of contaminants from the soils to the groundwater. The hot spot phase would involve the removal of some 6,100 cubic yards of both PCB-contaminated surface soil and concrete and petroleum-contaminated soil. A series of groundwater extraction wells would be installed next to Newtown and Maspeth Creeks to catch contaminated water before it reaches the creeks. Collected groundwater would be treated at an on-site treatment facility before being discharged. Steel sheeting barriers with low permeability would be installed next to the creeks below the extraction wells to reduce inflow of surface water from the creeks into the groundwater collection system.

There would be long-term monitoring of the groundwater to keep track of conditions and potential changes to groundwater quality. It would involve annual sampling of designated wells in a network of approximately 20 wells.

When questioned about plans for cleaning up Newtown and Maspeth Creeks, Wolterding indicated that action will take place at a later date. "There will be a remedial investigation to determine the nature of the sediments in Newtown Creek, to determine to what extent, if any, those sediments have been contaminated by Phelps Dodge, and then serve as a basis for a remedial cleanup," Wolterding said. "When the remedial investigation feasibility study for sediments in creek waters is completed, we'll be coming back to you with a proposed remedial action plan and public meeting on that alone." Phelps Dodge, the last industrial owner of the site, has signed a consent order to pay for all of the expenses specified in the Alternative 5 plan.

Frank Principe, chairman of Community Board 5, offered words of caution for those in charge of cleaning up the site. "We're dealing with soil that's been dried and loosened," said Principe, whose engineering credentials go back to before World War II. "Fugitive dust they call it, and when you get a decent, little wind, off it goes and into the houses and into the properties all around Maspeth and Sunnyside and Long Island City, even over to Greenpoint. That problem is important to the success of this project, and it must be dealt with."

The Health Department promises to have a community air monitor on site during the remedial procedure to measure levels of dust and toxins, and the data will be available for the benefit of public health. "The Health Department will review it and DEC will review it," Wolterding said. "Certainly it will be available to the environmental committees of Community Boards 5 and 2 and anyone else."

The proposed remedial action plan, or PRAP, aims to clean a section of land that has been steadily degraded by industrial pollution for 115 years. At the meeting several people from three community boards and neighborhoods not far from the site expressed disagreement with the plan. For one thing, it would not address the problem of pollution in the waters of Newtown and Maspeth Creeks, though it would stem the flow of contaminated groundwater into them.

The Laurel Hill site was brought into the age of heavy industry in the late 1880s when a copper smelting plant was built there. About 40 years later, a copper industry giant, Phelps Dodge, purchased its predecessor's property and built on it extensively, completing the project in the mid-1930s. Smelting was discontinued at the end of the 1950s and all other manufacturing operations by 1983, as Phelps Dodge withdrew, razing a few but by no means all of its buildings. The United States Postal Service bought the site in 1986, intent on building a large mail depot. That same year, the state, which had been examining the land since 1980 to determine the extent of industrial pollution, classified it Class 2, meaning that significant threats to public health or the environment, or both, were evident.

Phelps Dodge repurchased the land from the USPS in 1997. The remaining buildings were razed in 1999 and 2000.

Joseph Conley, chairperson of Community Board 2, asked who was going to pay for the cleanup. Wolterding said that Phelps Dodge is responsible for that. Bob Holden of Community Board 5 was the first to ask why Newtown and Maspeth Creeks themselves were not being considered for cleanup. Wolterding said that the land cleanup and groundwater treatment were enough for any one PRAP, and the waterways would have to be tended to later.

In addition to frustration over the DEC's lack of attention to cleaning the waterways, there were considerable other objections that left a feeling of dissatisfaction at the end of the meeting. Conley said the project was woefully short of air monitors, which will be needed more than ever when thousands of tons of contaminated land are dug up and taken away. Principe said that when younger he delivered the cement that went into Phelps Dodge's building expansion in the 1930s (he is now 93), and also that he built an aluminum processing plant there some 60 years ago, during the war, and literally kicked up a lot of dust doing it. He asked about the dust, greatly contaminated, that will be raised now. He hoped DEC could contain it, and fulfill the fine words of its report, which he greatly admired. Ed Camperman, a Maspeth resident, said the contaminated matter that is removed should be shipped out by rail, since railroad cars can contain many times the amount of material that trucks can contain. He was troubled at the thought of trucks and their hazardous loads steadily rolling down Grand Avenue and other local roads. Several in the audience said they didn't believe proper attention was given to the contaminated site's affect on health. They audience was impatient with Stephanie Selmer, a research scientist from the Department of Health, based in upstate Troy, who tried to explain the monitoring that was being done. She was berated for failing to provide statistics that might suggest high cancer and retardation rates among the populace in the neighborhoods surrounding the site. Tony Nunziata, head of Community Board 5's environmental committee, said the gap was too great, remarking, "Maybe we need Alternative 5?" He asked about capping, and Wolterding told him there would be six inches of concrete and six inches of road grade asphalt. The prospect didn't please Nunziata, as he recalled that capping the site was considered unsatisfactory when it was suggested 10 years ago, "but now it's considered all right?" That moved Dorothy Morehead of the Community Board 2 environmental committee to respond that the situation is different now and the new capping plan is far better than the old one. When Gert McDonald of Community Board 2 asked where all the removed matter would go, Wolterding said the hazardous waste would go to a secure landfill, isolated from the public or the possibility of subsequent development, while the non-hazardous waste would go to an approved landfill.

The meeting succeeded in establishing that the groundwater problem would be well checked by the extraction wells and the barrier that will be built along the bank of Newtown and Maspeth Creek. The prospect of a 30-year groundwater monitoring program was additionally reassuring. The project will be officially ready to go after DEC considers last minute submissions in the inquiry period that is set to expire before the month ends.

After the public hearing, Carol Terrano, a member of Community Board 2, expressed her disappointment that not enough information on health issues was provided by the agency representatives. "The level of arsenic and lead in our community, that's known to be a major factor in retardation," Terrano told the Gazette. "Has it affected the kids in our community? We don't know that and we should know that."

Besides arsenic and lead, other inorganic contaminants existing at the site are copper and antimony; semi-volatile organic compounds include the following petroleum constituents: benzo anthracene, benzo fluoranthene, benzo pyrene, dibenzo anthracene, indeno pyrene and phenanthrene.

Walter Carcione, executive vice president of Wallace Packaging, voiced his skepticism over what he heard at the meeting. "I just feel uncomfortable about not having enough experts giving us opinions on this matter—independent environmental scientists telling us what they would do," Carcione, who works four blocks from the site, said. "We're very concerned about the health effects that might have taken place already that we're unaware of."

The meeting fulfilled the public participation requirement of the New York State Inactive Hazardous Waste Site Remediation Program, article 27, title 13. Comments received will be considered as the remedy for the site is finalized. Public input will be factored into a record of decision, which will describe the remedy selected and why it was selected. All comments will receive a response in a prepared summary. Written comments will be accepted until Nov. 25, 2002. The mailing address is: Shaminder Chawla, NYSDEC Division of Environmental Remediation, 47-40 21st St., Long Island City, NY 11101.