Warehouse plan approved for East Farmingdale Superfund site - Newsday
A state Superfund site in East Farmingdale that has been undeveloped for nearly a century will now be the home of multiple warehouses.
Babylon Town’s planning and zoning boards have given the green light for Acadia Republic Farmingdale LLC to construct a trucking logistics and storage yard on the west side of Route 110 just south of Conklin Street. The project includes two single-story warehouses and a single-story leasing office totaling 65,000 square feet with 9 acres of outdoor storage space.
The site has been the subject of state and town agency fights and litigation for decades as developers sought to build retail centers and a Stew Leonard’s store. Retail use has faced opposition largely due to the site being located in a Republic Airport runway protection zone, which was established by the Federal Aviation Administration to protect those on the ground.
In 2010, the state Department of Environmental Conservation declared the property a Superfund site due to contaminated soil because of previous Fairchild Republic aviation manufacturing uses nearby.
“I do believe that this is the lowest impact version of any proposal we have seen for the site to date,” Nunzio Russo, a planner in the town’s planning department, told Newsday.
Acadia has owned the 19-acre site since 2012 and has previously made retail development pitches for the property. Josh Bissinger, listed by Acadia on its website as vice president of development, declined to comment.
Republic Airport manager John Lauth submitted a letter to the town planning board last Juneasking Acadia to relocate or eliminate buildings within the runway protection zone, a move the company said would make the project financially unfeasible. In December, the FAA sent a letter declaring there was “no hazard to air navigation” due to the project. The state Department of Transportation told Newsday last week that airport operations will not be impacted.
The property’s shallow soils have semi-volatile organic compounds, according to the DEC, but testing shows no groundwater contamination. In 2015, the agency estimated a cleanup would cost $250 million and recommended that the site be capped and monitored instead.
Acadia representatives told the town they will remove some of the contaminated soil during construction and the rest of the site will be capped and monitored according to a DEC plan.
Community members have expressed worries about potential site contamination for residents living on East Carmans Road across the street from the development.
Nancy Cypser, of the Long Island Civic Alliance coalition of civic groups, told Newsday in an email that her organization is “disappointed” that the DEC “does not consider any additional clean-ucleanups Superfund site to be necessary.”
At a meeting last month between residents, the DEC and town officials that was called for by the Alliance, Cypser pushed for the site to be remediated and for further testing of the residential properties.
“We’re not just thinking about what’s going to happen now, we’re thinking about what’s going to happen 20 years from now,” she said.
The DEC’s Bob Corcoran told Cypser that the agency’s testing shows the contamination has not moved from the site in 30 years of monitoring.
“There’s no contaminated groundwater coming off this site,” he said. “So you can dig it all up for $250 million and I don’t know how many thousands of truckloads of soil and then you bring in clean soil. ... I don’t see the benefit of that. I would rather reuse dirty sites for nonresidential uses.”
Cypser said the contaminated site is “on top of houses,” but Corcoran countered that the houses are across the street.
“Every city in the world has situations like this,” he said. “It’s not a catastrophe waiting to happen.”
Corcoran told Newsday that Acadia must submit a remedial action work plan to the DEC, which would make sure there is air monitoring during construction and that any soil taken off-site is tested. In addition, the state DOT has to sign off on curb cuts for egress/ingress to the site, a spokesman said.
A state Superfund site in East Farmingdale that has been undeveloped for nearly a century will now be the home of multiple warehouses.
Babylon Town’s planning and zoning boards have given the green light for Acadia Republic Farmingdale LLC to construct a trucking logistics and storage yard on the west side of Route 110 just south of Conklin Street. The project includes two single-story warehouses and a single-story leasing office totaling 65,000 square feet with 9 acres of outdoor storage space.
The site has been the subject of state and town agency fights and litigation for decades as developers sought to build retail centers and a Stew Leonard’s store. Retail use has faced opposition largely due to the site being located in a Republic Airport runway protection zone, which was established by the Federal Aviation Administration to protect those on the ground.
In 2010, the state Department of Environmental Conservation declared the property a Superfund site due to contaminated soil because of previous Fairchild Republic aviation manufacturing uses nearby.
“I do believe that this is the lowest impact version of any proposal we have seen for the site to date,” Nunzio Russo, a planner in the town’s planning department, told Newsday.
Acadia has owned the 19-acre site since 2012 and has previously made retail development pitches for the property. Josh Bissinger, listed by Acadia on its website as vice president of development, declined to comment.
Republic Airport manager John Lauth submitted a letter to the town planning board last Juneasking Acadia to relocate or eliminate buildings within the runway protection zone, a move the company said would make the project financially unfeasible. In December, the FAA sent a letter declaring there was “no hazard to air navigation” due to the project. The state Department of Transportation told Newsday last week that airport operations will not be impacted.
The property’s shallow soils have semi-volatile organic compounds, according to the DEC, but testing shows no groundwater contamination. In 2015, the agency estimated a cleanup would cost $250 million and recommended that the site be capped and monitored instead.
Acadia representatives told the town they will remove some of the contaminated soil during construction and the rest of the site will be capped and monitored according to a DEC plan.
Community members have expressed worries about potential site contamination for residents living on East Carmans Road across the street from the development.
Nancy Cypser, of the Long Island Civic Alliance coalition of civic groups, told Newsday in an email that her organization is “disappointed” that the DEC “does not consider any additional clean-ucleanups Superfund site to be necessary.”
At a meeting last month between residents, the DEC and town officials that was called for by the Alliance, Cypser pushed for the site to be remediated and for further testing of the residential properties.
“We’re not just thinking about what’s going to happen now, we’re thinking about what’s going to happen 20 years from now,” she said.
The DEC’s Bob Corcoran told Cypser that the agency’s testing shows the contamination has not moved from the site in 30 years of monitoring.
“There’s no contaminated groundwater coming off this site,” he said. “So you can dig it all up for $250 million and I don’t know how many thousands of truckloads of soil and then you bring in clean soil. ... I don’t see the benefit of that. I would rather reuse dirty sites for nonresidential uses.”
Cypser said the contaminated site is “on top of houses,” but Corcoran countered that the houses are across the street.
“Every city in the world has situations like this,” he said. “It’s not a catastrophe waiting to happen.”
Corcoran told Newsday that Acadia must submit a remedial action work plan to the DEC, which would make sure there is air monitoring during construction and that any soil taken off-site is tested. In addition, the state DOT has to sign off on curb cuts for egress/ingress to the site, a spokesman said.
