The recent discovery of radioactive nuggets in the dredge spoils of Glen Cove Creek by the Army Corps of Engineers has heightened health concerns and put a stumbling block in the city's quest for a revitalized waterfront. According to EPA officials the radioactive material, currently being stored on the LiTungsten Superfund site, poses no harm to humans unless it is ingested and/or one comes into direct contact with it over a long period of time. They also said no fugitive dust was detected during EPA air monitoring of the vicinity.

On June 26, Mayor Thomas Suozzi and the Glen Cove City Council held a meeting in city hall to update residents on the creek problem. The radioactive material has prompted a debate between the city, the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers with Mayor Suozzi remaining steadfast that the city wants the creek dredging project completed as soon as possible and the dredge spoils taken out of Glen Cove, post haste. The bureaucratic maze to be navigated in addressing the problem is made more complex because the EPA needs approval for the dredge contractor to continue digging and the Army Corps needs a place to put the contaminated dredge spoils. To date, the EPA has spent $37 million in cleaning up two Glen Cove Superfund sites along the creek. It will cost $3 million to separate the nuggets and contain them and $400 a ton to ship the 22,000 yards of material to Utah for proper disposal.

Following a detailed history of the accomplishments made in Glen Cove's seven-year-old waterfront revitalization project, Mayor Suozzi, EPA and Army Corps of Engineers officials offered explanations as to why the radioactivity had not been detected during previous test samplings taken along the 1.1 mile creek-a federal navigation channel.

After 30 years of neglect, Phase I, (the mouth of the creek), dredging by the Army Corps of Engineers began in 1996. The dredge spoils were determined to be clean sand and could be used for other purposes. Subsequent and numerous surface and core tests up and down the creek bed, (between 1998 and April, 2000), showed no radioactivity present in the creek. DEC and Army Corps officials determined that the radioactivity present at the LiTungsten Superfund site, (located along the creek and in the middle of its own cleanup effort), did not migrate offsite.

Earlier this month, having dredged 22,000 yards of a total 40,000 yards slated to be removed from the creek, the EPA tested that amount with a Geiger counter and found "lots of radioactivity." The EPA official at the meeting said the material was big chunks and little pebbles of tungsten slag, (the slag is processed tungsten ore). The reason the EPA gave for the radioactivity not showing up before is because the isolated nuggets were strewn underwater along the shore of the LiTungsten site. Unless every square inch of the creek bed had been tested the radioactivity would not have been found. The nuggets were underwater as if they were big rocks thrown into a bed of mud. It is believed they fell off barges and into the creek during the years LiTungsten was operating.