The NAACP, environmentalists and community groups want New York Attorney General Letita James to launch an independent investigation of waste company Covanta dumping toxic ash into the Brookhaven landfill.
A Newsday investigation of an ongoing whistleblower lawsuit showed that for several years, Covanta Hempstead employees were uncertain that the waste they burned into ash for electricity was nonhazardous before sending it to the Brookhaven landfill.
It also showed the waste-to-energy facility’s state monitor omitted negative information from inspections.
“This thing has been 50 years in the making,” said Monique Fitzgerald, co-founder of the Brookhaven Landfill Action and Remediation Group. “They could have closed this down when they said they was. They could have not even put it here. Because the community never wanted it here.”
Her community formed the community group in 2020 to call on the Town of Brookhaven for the closure of the landfill it operates. The landfill is scheduled to stop accepting construction and demolition debris by the end of 2024, but will continue to accept ash deposits for a few years until capacity is reached.
Deputy Town Supervisor Dan Panico had said he expects the closure to be in 2028, but the town has not responded to freedom of information requests to verify the facility’s capacity.
On Monday, after seeing Covanta’s internal conversations obtained by Newsday, Fitzgerald and her community in North Bellport, which has a predominantly Black and Latino population, again called for the immediate criminal investigation and closure of the landfill.
“We want results,” echoed the few dozen community members and their children behind her.
Brookhaven NAACP President Georgette Grier-Key said Covanta, the Town of Brookhaven, and the state need to be held accountable.
“We should not be doing their jobs,” Grier-Key said. “And if you had it up to me, fire them all because nobody's doing their jobs. Get rid of them.”
The state monitor assigned to Covanta Hempstead has since died. In a statement, Basil Seggos, the commissioner of the state Department of Environment Conservation (DEC), said while he “can’t yet speak to what happened during prior administrations,” his department is investigating the Brookhaven landfill and Covanta facility.
“We are taking seriously information from a decade ago or more as it comes to light during the ongoing litigation,” he said. “We will take action to address any violations we find.”
The state agency has an ongoing investigation into allegations of improper ash mixing and disposal of ash by Covanta, including monitoring facility operations. Seggos credits his department for requiring both facilities to overhaul its ash handling and disposal to prevent odor and other offsite impacts to meet air quality and solid waste standards.
“There is no way that they can investigate themselves," Grier-Key said. “They thought that we would go away and this would be swept under the rug.”
“They are the ones that are the conspirators and they need to do something about covering each other's mess up,” she added.
Adrienne Esposito, the executive director of Citizens Campaign for the Environment, said the North Bellport community has wrongfully shouldered the responsibility of documenting potentially toxic fumes and ash emitting from the transport and landfilling of waste.
“It was a serious situation that was completely and totally ignored by the DEC,” Esposito said.
The town, nor Covanta Hempstead and its New Jersey-based parent company, has responded to requests for comment. The company previously denied that any of the ash was proven to be hazardous.
“This is our lives,” Nicole Jean Christian, the chair of environmental justice at the Brookhaven NAACP. “Climate change and environmental justice are civil rights.”
