Mr. Schneiderman is asking that more testing be completed, and that the testing, which centered on the landfill, be expanded to include areas to the north and west of the site, between Francis S. Gabreski Airport in Westhampton and the landfill.
During a work session on Thursday, November 1, Town Board members were presented with a study conducted by Eric Weinstock, a hydrologist with the Wood Group, that looked into possible sources of contamination at the Damascus Road landfill.
When the contaminants were found at the former landfill site in East Quogue, the DEC detected levels as high as 11,000 parts per trillion, or ppt; for context, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency set the health advisory level for water containing the chemicals at 70 ppt.
Mr. Schneiderman said the town gave bottled water to those with private wells in the area, and the Suffolk County Health Department started testing groundwater with monitoring wells around the old landfill to see if any had PFOS or PFOA levels above the safe level.
“At the same time, the DEC started pointing a finger at this Damascus Road landfill as the possible source of contamination,” Mr. Schneiderman said, explaining the DEC declared the former landfill a possible Superfund site—a contaminated site that poses a risk to human health and the environment.
Mr. Weinstock said during the study, groundwater samples were pulled from three wells around the property.
One monitoring well was upstream from the landfill site, to see what was entering the area.
“That well had 11,200 ppt of PFOS and 424 ppt of PFOA,” Mr. Weinstock said.
Despite the PFOs numbers being higher as the water exits the landfill, Mr. Schneiderman had his doubts that the site was contributing to the contamination of groundwater.
“I’m not convinced it’s a Superfund site.” Mr. Schneiderman offered alternate explanations: He said a plane could have crashed toward the end of the airport, upstream from the landfill, and the fire from the crash could have been put out with foam containing the toxic compounds.