Dozens of Suffolk County residents spoke Wednesday night at a public forum in Wyandanch on the environmental threats affecting their communities.
Most of the public comments came from Wyandanch and North Bellport residents who railed against the Brookhaven landfill and the health problems they say it’s caused, like cancer and asthma.
Representatives from the state Department of Environmental Conservation and the federal EPA were present for the listening session and took notes while residents spoke.
“Being from an underserved community, it’s important that we have the ability to address the number of environmental hazards that actually are placed here," Ghanya Grant with the Rosa Parks Civic Association said.
Industrialization — and the truck traffic that comes with it — has made reducing greenhouse gas emissions seem "insurmountable," according to Grant.
"Many times, we’re often kind of slated as some kind of simple NIMBY-ism when it’s much, much more than that,” Grant said.
Sean Mahar, the interim head of the state DEC, said he could feel residents’ anger and mistrust, and highlighted state efforts to electrify school buses and municipal trucks.
"What stuck with me is the passion that people bring to their communities and the issues that are facing those communities and the impact that historical decisions are having and what they feel is happening to them around them," Mahar said.
"It's powerful to hear, and it's something that we really do take to heart and take back to our work every day," Mahar said.
Many speakers expressed impatience with the slow rate of remediating the Brookhaven landfill.
“The landfill has polluted our groundwater near our community with PFAS and PFOA’s," said Monique Fitzgerald, cofounder of Brookhaven Landfill Action and Remediation Group.
"I know that’s an issue in Hempstead as well with having PFAS in the water, and having government doing very little to remediate or to work in the haste which the moment requires.”
