Read the full article by Vera Chinese (Newsday)
“Sen. Chuck Schumer is urging the U.S. Navy to develop a plan to connect residents living near a former Calverton naval weapons site to public water as contaminants have been detected in private wells.
The senator is also asking the Navy to expand its investigation into toxic chemicals flowing from the facility, which was owned by the federal government and operated by Northrop Grumman Corp. until 1996.
In a letter to Navy Secretary Kenneth Braithwaite sent on Oct. 28, Schumer (D-N.Y.) noted that the levels of perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) detected in nearby drinking wells exceed state standards adopted for those compounds in July.
‘This new reality requires immediate attention and action from the Navy, specifically, to provide public drinking water to the impacted homes and an expanded investigation into other potentially impacted water supplies further downgradient of the known release sites,’ Schumer wrote in the letter.
Representatives in the Navy public affairs office did not respond to request for comment.
New York on July 30 adopted a standard of 10 parts per trillion for PFOS, found in firefighting foams, and PFOA, used in nonstick and stain-resistant products. It also adopted the nation’s first standard for 1,4-dioxane, an industrial solvent and likely carcinogen, at 1 part per billion.
Eighteen of the 25 samples taken from test wells detected 1,4-dioxane with seven times above the state standard, but no private wells have been sampled by the Navy for the compound to date, Schumer said. Four private wells sampled by the Navy in 2018 showed detections of PFOS/PFOA ranging from 4.61 ppt to 16.83 ppt. The Navy at the time said that none of the samples exceeded the federal health advisory level of 70 ppt…”