Hazardous Military Sites In NYC Identified By ProPublica

NEW YORK, NY — New York City has 18 sites currently or formerly owned by the Department of Defense that are deemed hazardous – with five of them being considered medium or high risk, according to data obtained and published by ProPublica.

According to the website, which has been documenting toxic pollution left behind by the military across the country, there are more than 40,000 such hazardous sites nationwide.

ProPublica found that many of the sites have extensive groundwater and soil pollution or present a risk of exploding bombs and munitions. Some are part of old facilities that may not be known locally even though there may still be a risk of exposure to harmful contaminants.

As ProPublica notes, the contamination could spread to an area far larger than the site itself.

Brooklyn is home to eight hazardous sites, nearly half the city's total. Five are in Queens, two are on Staten Island, two are in the Bronx and one is on Governors Island, which is part of the borough of Manhattan.

The city's only high risk site is in Flushing, Queens, at the Engineering School at Fort Totten, where contaminated sediments pose a risk to the soil and water, according to ProPublica. The site is currently the headquarters for the 77th U.S. Army Reserve Command.

According to ProPublica, past and estimated future costs of hazardous site cleanups in the five boroughs is more than $63.5 million.

The New York City installations with at least one high or medium risk site are:

Engineering School, Flushing, Queens
Fort Tilden, Breezy Point, Queens
Floyd Bennett Field, Brooklyn
Fort Lafayette, Fort Hamilton, Brooklyn
Fort Jay, Governors Island

ProPublica explains in its methodology that it classified entire installations as high risk even if it contained just one high risk site.

(Lead image: Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn is pictured in March 2011. Photo by Chris Hawley/Associated Press)