Brookhaven Residents Demand Landfill Cleanup as Contamination Plume Grows

A South Setauket resident stood before Brookhaven officials Thursday and delivered a verdict shared by dozens who packed a Farmingville auditorium: "The plumes have to be cleaned up and the landfill closed because it's poisoning us all."

The March 27 public meeting centered on a Corrective Measures Assessment, a state-required technical process evaluating how to respond to an underground contamination plume spreading from the Brookhaven Landfill. State sampling has confirmed per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, including PFOA and PFOS, along with 1,4-dioxane, in monitoring wells downgradient of the landfill. Those findings triggered the CMA requirement from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, which is overseeing the process and has set firm deadlines: the town must complete the public engagement phase by mid-April and submit a full corrective measures report for state review by early May.

Town officials presented five remediation options at the session: immediate closure of the landfill; excavation and physical removal of buried waste; pump-and-treat groundwater systems; enhanced long-term monitoring; and expanded hookups to municipal water lines for homes currently relying on private wells near the plume. Officials defended their methodical approach, citing the complexity of evaluating a site whose historic operations predate modern landfill regulations, while acknowledging the political and financial challenge of immediate excavation or closure.

Residents and members of the Brookhaven Groundwater Landfill Action & Remediation Group, known as BLARG, rejected that framing. Advocates called the contamination "historic" and argued that options centered on additional testing and monitoring fall dangerously short of halting the plume's spread. Their most urgent concern is contaminants migrating into Beaver Creek and Bellport Bay, coastal waters that support both ecosystems and the regional economy across eastern Suffolk County.

The town has separately sought a five-year operating extension for the landfill, a request that drew sharp criticism from advocates who see it as incompatible with genuine remediation urgency. The DEC extended certain CMA deadlines to accommodate more thorough public engagement, but the early May report submission deadline holds, and the agency retains final authority over which corrective measures the town must implement.

For residents near the plume, the most immediate question is whether municipal water hookups will be extended quickly enough to households still drawing from potentially contaminated private wells. That option is among the five under consideration, but no timeline for its implementation has been committed to publicly.

BLARG organizers and environmental groups have pledged ongoing mobilization, including petitions and additional public comment submissions, ahead of the May deadline. The DEC's corrective measures ruling will determine not only the scope of cleanup required but who bears the cost, making the early May report the pivotal document in a dispute that a packed Farmingville auditorium made clear is no longer just a regulatory matter.