More testing at nuclear site

 

May 7 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Mark Harrington Newsday, Melville, N.Y.

As the Army Corps of Engineers returns to a former nuclear fuel plant in Hicksville this month to conduct the latest round of tests, a lawyer for former workers said he is exploring a lawsuit to create a fund so people who worked in the area can undergo testing.

In a 501-page report completed in March, the Army Corps laid out a plan to return to the site to conduct a new series of tests. The aim, the report said, is to "fill in data gaps" from previous investigations, "define the nature and extent of on-site contamination," and "examine possible exposures associated with the contamination."

The former Sylvania Electric site, which produced nuclear fuel rods for power plants, dumped large amounts of chemical and radiological toxins into the ground and air from 1952 to 1967. Workers routinely incinerated large amounts of uranium shavings during those 15 years.

The site has been the subject of 27 investigation and remediation programs since 1987, when the Nassau Health Department found PCBs, chlorinated solvents and arsenic in drums discovered beneath the surface, according to the report. Radiological toxins at the site include thorium-232, and uranium-238, -235 and -234, the report said.

Jim Moore, a project manager for the Army Corps, said field workers will begin work at the site in about two weeks. The size and extent of any cleanup "depends on what data we find," Moore said.

Verizon Communications, which owns the site and is responsible for the cleanup, has already removed about 56,000 cubic yards of toxic soil, primarily materials near the surface.

A Verizon spokeswoman did not provide a comment.

Moore said the new investigation will drill down 60 to 80 feet, to the groundwater level.

The report said Phase I work includes a soil-gas survey, indoor air sampling, a "walkover gamma radiation survey" and a "limited radiation survey in building 70," which once housed Air Techniques Inc.

As the work goes on, a former employee of a building on the site is preparing for a second surgery to remove part of his lung. Gerard DePascale is the Lake Ronkonkoma resident who this spring won a workers' compensation case that found his extremely rare cancer was the result of work-related exposure to radiation. His former employer, Magazine Distributors Inc., has filed an appeal.

That means DePascale will not receive the $400 a week in benefits he was awarded until the case is heard in Albany this summer.

Troy Rosasco, DePascale's Hauppauge-based attorney, said his client is preparing for surgery May 17 to remove a tumor even as he recovers from the removal last month of half of the other lung.

If Magazine Distributors "had not filed the appeal, he would have received his money over a month ago," Rosasco said, noting that DePascale is living on Social Security disability of about $2,000 a month. "He's struggling. He could use the money."

In a prepared statement MDI said: "While we are sympathetic to Mr. DePascale's ongoing health problems, the workman's compensation he claims he is entitled to has yet to be fully ruled upon by the courts."

In an April 9 letter to employees, the company warned that "very often in situations like this, the complexities involved lead to misinformation" and "distortion of the facts." The company said it began a program to "establish an open line of communication" with employees and asked them to call a representative in New Jersey.

Rosasco said he has received inquiries from other workers in the area about being tested after U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer last month promised to help them get monitored and treated. Rosasco said Schumer's staff wants to do so using an interpretation of the Energy Workers Compensation Act. A Schumer spokeswoman wasn't available Friday.

In the interim, Rosasco said he has begun work on behalf of people who worked in buildings at or near the site to establish a fund so that they can be tested. He said any potential suit would be filed against Verizon, which did not comment Friday on the possibility.

At the same time, he said, continued testing of the site raises questions about assurances that the site was completely safe.

"It tells me that the state Department of Health, which has consistently insisted there are no health risks at this site, is operating fast and loose with data the U.S. Army Corps says is missing," Rosasco said.

Claire Pospisil, a spokeswoman for the state Health Department, said the agency stood by its position that there are no health risks.

"Right now, exposures, and therefore health risks, from the site are not expected," she said. "We will evaluate new data from the [Army Corps'] remedial investigation as it comes in to identify additional requisite steps for preventing the potential for human exposures in the future."