Company To Pay $48M For Hazardous Dumping in Port Jeff

A judge ordered a former Long Island defense contractor and its CEO to pay more than $48 million in cleanup costs and penalties for discharging hazardous substances in Port Jefferson.

Lawrence Aviation Industries, Inc. and CEO Gerald Cohen were hit with the environmental cleanup penalties for dumping hazardous substances at LAI's Port Jefferson facility.

The substances could cause harm to human health and the environment, officials said.

“This case and the significant monetary penalties imposed by the court should serve as a warning to would-be polluters, including individuals, that this Office and the EPA will use every tool at their disposal to protect Long Island’s groundwater and to ensure that those responsible for contamination will foot the bill for clean-up costs,” said Richard P. Donoghue, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York.

“EPA is pleased that our collaborative efforts with the United States Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of New York have resulted in a victory for New Yorkers who have suffered for years with the environmental degradation inflicted by Lawrence Aviation and its owner, Gerald Cohen,” said U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Regional Administrator Pete Lopez. “This judgment provides for the reimbursement of money spent on cleanup work and imposes penalties that act as a deterrent. Our active engagement and work at this site will continue over the long-term, and we are proud that EPA’s Superfund continues to help revitalize this community and communities across the nation.”

In a separate, 37-page Memorandum and Order, the court detailed the evidence establishing LAI’s and Cohen’s long history of disregard for federal, state and county environmental laws. In the early 1980s, for example, after the Suffolk County Department of Health issued a series of recommendations for LAI to come into compliance with various pollution control laws, LAI used a front-end loader to crush 55- gallon drums containing hazardous substances (among more than 1,600 of such drums identified on the property), resulting in a massive discharge of waste directly onto the ground. Samples taken from those drums revealed impermissibly high levels of trichloroethylene (TCE), among other pollutants.

Nearly two decades later, in 1999, testing performed by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation revealed contamination of groundwater and surface water at the site. Thereafter, in March 2000, the site was placed on the National Priorities List. For these and other reasons, the groundwater in the vicinity of the site is not currently used for drinking water.

In 2008, Cohen and LAI pleaded guilty to violating the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act for storing hazardous wastes at the LAI Facility without a permit issued by the EPA or New York State. Cohen was sentenced to a term of imprisonment of one year and a day, and supervised release of thirty-six months. He and LAI were ordered to pay restitution to the EPA of $105,816.