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| Credit: Patch/Town of Oyster Bay |
BETHPAGE, NY — Six 55-gallon chemical drums were found buried seven feet beneath Bethpage Community Park near the ball field and skatepark, the Town of Oyster Bay announced Wednesday. Supervisor Joseph Saladino renewed demands for Northrop Grumman to excavate all contaminated soils in the park.
"These chemical drums are encased in concrete coffins, which is highly uncommon according to environmental experts," the Town of Oyster Bay wrote.
The town called it a "graveyard of chemical drums."
A Grumman spokesperson said the company discovered several drums encased in concrete beneath a closed area of the park while conducting environmental remediation.
"We promptly notified NYSDEC and other relevant stakeholders and we are working with NYSDEC to assess and address this situation as quickly as possible," Grumman stated. "We remain committed to protecting the health and well-being of the community and to continuing our partnership with NYSDEC and other government regulators to address environmental conditions in the area."
It is really hard to imagine a world in which hazardous waste was not disposed of "properly."* It would be fascinating to know what the thought process around burying these drums were, and what potential other disposal methods there might have been years ago.
*I'm loathe to credit federal legislation for business regulation, but it seems to me that a United States with RCRA is better than one without.
Fascinating? Try horrifying.
ReplyDeleteHere's a good one: https://www.upi.com/Archives/1981/06/22/A-federal-judge-Monday-sentenced-Robert-E-Buck-Ward/9763362030400/
"Between 15,000 and 30,000 gallons of toxic chemical were sprayed along the shoulders of rural roads in 15 eastern North Carolina counties in late July and early August 1979."
People bad-mouth the government, but regulations don't arise in a vacuum. Never forget that many corporations think they only owe service to the bottom line. Hug your local EPA employee.
https://www.nytimes.com/1979/06/05/archives/3-plead-guilty-to-dumping-pcbs-in-north-carolina.html
ReplyDeleteI'm curious to know what the contents are such that they would go to the effort of encasing them in concrete...
ReplyDeleteI have this discussion with my libertarian friends all the time - needing the EPA is less than desirable (like most aspects of big government), but in the realm of chemical waste handling and overall chemical business ethics, we can't just depend on capitalism to sort out the mess when misdeeds arise.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is that people like to "socialize the costs and privatize the benefits" of business activity, and sometimes they don't just use the government to do so. Dumping your unwanted waste in someone else's backyard is a standard way of doing this.
ReplyDeleteI also suspect the people who complain about government overreach for EPA don't live where the unwanted stuff gets dumped. Poor people don't have the same medical care to detect problems nor the lawyers to quickly make it costly enough for people to dump stuff on them,. In addition, if the health costs are high enough, a small company won't have enough money anywhere to pay for the damage it causes, and a large company likely has enough lawyers to avoid paying for the damage it causes. If the damage can't be compensated, then it needs to be prevented as best as possible. Hence the EPA. - Hap