BY JENNIFER SMITH
Suffolk health officials are knocking on doors in Brookhaven hamlet, telling
residents with private wells to have them tested for traces of a plume that
originated decades earlier at the town landfill.
First discovered in 1980, the problem is believed to stem from failed landfill
liners that released leachate, water that percolates
through landfilled trash, into local groundwater. The
plume contains ammonia and volatile organic chemicals such as chlorobenzene, an ingredient in some pesticides, and tetrachloroethylene (PCE), used in dry cleaning, according
to town monitoring reports.
Water samples from Beaver Dam Creek and an irrigation
well at the
While the contamination doesn't appear to exceed drinking water standards, some
fear the ammonia could harm brook trout and other marine life. "It's very
toxic to fish," said Robert Waters, supervisor of the
No drinking water standards have been set for ammonia and no health effects
have been found in humans exposed to typical environmental concentrations,
according to the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.
Some residents were taken aback by the news of the contamination, made public
this summer in a county report on water quality in Beaver Dam Creek. Others who
already knew about the plume said more should have been done to track its
progress.
"It is something that was known many years, and there was a study that
pointed out where it was going to go," said Thomas Williams, vice
president of the Post-Morrow Foundation, an organization dedicated to
preserving the character of Brookhaven hamlet. The county did the water quality
study at the group's behest.
The portions of the landfill where the leaks were thought to originate were
capped in the 1990s to prevent more water getting in. Contamination
concentrations closest to the source have since declined, town officials said.
"Eventually the leak will be cut off completely," said Ed Hubbard,
Brookhaven's commissioner of waste management. "It's a 260-foot waste
mass, so it's going to take some time to drain out."
The state Department of Environmental Conservation did not require further
remediation because the plume not classified as hazardous waste, DEC spokesman
Bill Fonda said.
The town has monitored groundwater at the landfill for years and also tested
Beaver Dam Creek for traces of the contamination. Public water was extended to
neighborhoods below the landfill in the late 1980s, but some property owners
may not have chosen to connect at that time.
Manager Sean Pilger had both wells at the organic
garden, known as the Hog Farm, tested for a wider range of contaminants than
usual this year after learning of the plume's progress. Chemicals matching
those in the landfill plume showed up in the farm's north well, although levels
were still within drinking water standards. Pilger
said the farm is drilling a deeper well to bypass the contamination.
Officials are investigating 51 properties in the potential path of the plume
that may still use well water. About one-third have already been determined to
be on public water and test results from six wells are pending.
The DEC will conduct a survey of Beaver Dam Creek next year to determine
whether the plume has affected brook trout or other marine life.