Romaine presses Navy for Calverton plume cleanup timetable amid new contamination data

Suffolk County is no longer willing to let the Navy keep Calverton in the study phase while contamination keeps moving. At a Tuesday night community meeting, County Executive Ed Romaine pressed for a cleanup timetable, saying residents have waited long enough as new county testing shows pollution from the former Navy-owned Grumman site is still moving through groundwater, surface water and fish habitat.

The dispute now centers on what remains in the plume and who must act first. County officials said Suffolk Health Department sampling, using test wells drilled around the site, found contaminant levels much higher than the results the Navy has publicly released. Officials also said the plume is migrating off-site, a warning that raises concerns not just for Calverton, but for wells, ponds, lakes and the Peconic River system.

Romaine framed Bethpage as the benchmark Suffolk now expects the Navy to meet. At Bethpage, the Navy and Northrop Grumman agreed in 2020 to a $406 million cleanup plan after years of delay. In Calverton, by contrast, the process has remained in the investigation phase for nearly 30 years and has gone through more than 60 Restoration Advisory Board meetings, according to County Legislator Greg Doroski.

The former Naval Weapons Industrial Reserve Plant in Calverton operated from 1954 to 1996, and the Navy says PFAS there are tied in part to historical use of firefighting foam, or AFFF. The Navy’s PFAS materials say it sampled private drinking-water wells near the site from 2016 to 2020 and later requested permission to expand sampling in the area. The Navy also says Riverhead Water District customers do not need Navy sampling.

The county’s broader concern is regional, not just local. Suffolk County Health Commissioner Dr. Gregson Pigott told residents that Nassau and Suffolk share one drinking water source, the sole-source aquifer, underscoring why officials describe Calverton as a threat to the East End and beyond. The contamination issue has also widened as the state established a private-well PFAS testing and mitigation rebate pilot program for Suffolk residents.

The Navy says the Calverton Restoration Advisory Board is an open public forum that meets twice a year and serves only in an advisory role, not a decision-making one. In February 2026, the board said it would host a public meeting so Suffolk Health Department officials could present private-well findings after the Navy declined to let county officials present them at a Navy-run forum. Adrienne Esposito of Citizens Campaign for the Environment said the county testing would give residents a fuller picture of groundwater contamination, while Navy manager Addison Phoenix said the county presentation did not fit the Navy’s environmental restoration discussion.

The pressure on the Navy comes as federal PFAS rules have tightened, with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency finalizing a drinking-water regulation in June 2024 and the Defense Department issuing a September 2024 memo to prioritize PFAS cleanup actions. Romaine’s message was that Suffolk expects Calverton to move with the same urgency now, and that indefinite delay is no longer acceptable.