Levittown Site Is Focus Of DEC Meeting
Drive-In Cleaners Inactive Hazardous Waste Disposal Site
By Dave Mock
The American Drive-In Cleaners site on Hempstead Turnpike, which has been named an inactive hazardous waste disposal site, will be the subject of a public meeting in Levittown early next month, the Tribune has learned
Joshua Epstein, citizen participation specialist for the state Department of Environmental Conservation in Stony Brook, said the DEC and the state Department of Health will discuss a remedial investigation and feasibility study work plan at a meeting Thursday night, Dec. 4 at 7:30 p.m. in the meeting room of Island Trees Middle School.
State DEC tests have found that the American Drive-In Cleaners site has been named a Class 2 hazardous waste site, which according to the DEC "poses a significant threat, though not one of a direct, immediate or crisis nature, to the public or the environment."
A soil gas survey conducted by the county Department of Health has found 1500 parts per million of tetrachloroethene, a common dry- cleaning solvent.
The Tribune attempted to contact the owner of the dry cleaners before press time, but was unable to do so.
The closest Hempstead Town water supply well is just over a half mile away from the site, on Bowling Lane, approximately 3000 feet southwest. The closest well directly south of the site, in the general direction of the groundwater flow, is on Entry Lane, about 5,000 feet from the site.
The DEC said that negotiations aimed at convincing the property owner to undertake a remedial investigation and feasibility study at the site were unsuccessful. Either initiated by the owner or the state, the work would still be done under DEC oversight, and either way the owner may be responsible for it.
The reported contamination was found after the county Department of Public Works installed five test wells on the vacant site across from American, at the time the county considered buying the vacant land (in 1990). Groundwater samples from two of the wells on the vacant site contained PCE at concentrations up to 274 parts per billion. The maximum allowable concentration of PCE in groundwater, under the state DEC's groundwater standards, is five parts per billion.
The DEC said that the public works department then notified the county Department of Health, which then found the contamination on the American Dry Cleaners site.
Three years ago, according to the environmental department, neighboring Frank's Nursery did an environmental assessment of its and the American site, while the nursery was considering redevelopment.
"This assessment revealed PCE contamination of up to 35,000 ppm (parts per million) in the soil near the east end of the building on the American Drive-In Cleaners property," said the DEC report. "The assessment also discovered a large underground void or opening in the area where this sample was taken. It is suspected that this void is an underground tank which may be a source of the contamination."
The American Drive-In Cleaners site also contains a barber shop, bike shop and sandwich shop.
The DEC says field work on a remedial investigation is slated to begin within the next few weeks, focused on the source area, how much the groundwater has been contaminated and the direction the contaminant is moving.
Among the elements of the field work are facility inspection, survey of water supply wells, existing monitoring well survey and sampling, new monitoring well installation and sampling, soil vapor survey, test pit excavation and sampling, shallow and deep subsurface soil sampling, air monitoring and sampling, and surveying and mapping.
Documents about the site, including the remedial investigation/field study work plan, are available for public review in the reference section of Island Trees Public Library on Farmedge Road and the state DEC Region 1 office in Building 40 of the State University of New York at Stony Brook.