Water filtration equipment to protect Farmingdale wells with $5.9M from state

The Village of Farmingdale received $5.9 million in state funding for filtration equipment needed to protect its drinking water from a contamination plume bearing down on its water wells.

Farmingdale has spent around $21 million since late 2021 adding filtration hardware to its three public drinking wells, village officials said. The equipment is designed to neutralize pollution from 1,4 dioxane, a likely carcinogen, before water is pumped to more than 2,000 homes in the village.

A plume of toxins is moving south through the village from the 9½-acre former site of Claremont Polychemical Corp., which manufactured pigments for plastics and inks from the mid-1960s through the 1970s. The company dumped liquid waste in leaching basins and put sludge in drums that leaked into the ground. Thousands of drums were removed from the site in 1979 and 1980, officials said.

A New York State-led effort to remediate the groundwater plume has knocked it down to smaller, noncontinuous areas of volatile organic compounds, officials said, ranging in size from 300 to 3,300 feet wide. The remaining contamination has threatened drinking water in the village of around 10,000 people.

"We believe the plumes have reached us," Farmingdale Mayor Ralph Ekstrand said in an interview. "We are filtering everything."

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation said a network of 54 wells were used to track the plume. A treatment system at the Claremont Polychemical site is active and has removed 3,980 pounds of chlorinated volatile organic compounds since 2002, the agency said. Studies are ongoing to determine how contaminations like 1,4 dioxane can be addressed, according to the DEC.

Learned of plume in 2021

The village was first notified of the plume in fall 2021.  In the winter of that year and the beginning of 2022, Farmingdale moved to acquire advanced oxidation processing and granulated activated carbon equipment, village officials said. 

The Claremont Polychemical plume is separate from the expansive Grumman plume west of Farmingdale.

Adrienne Esposito, executive director of the Farmingdale-based Citizens Campaign for the Environment, said hardware like granulated activated carbon and advanced oxidation processing equipment was difficult to obtain. The state grant helps blunt the impact of the significant cost to acquire and install the water filtration systems, she said. 

"Water is a necessity, not a luxury item," Esposito told Newsday on Thursday. "The more grants that the state distributes, the less the financial burden is falling on the ratepayers."

"Every New Yorker deserves clean, safe drinking water," Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a news release that announced the funding.

The village’s three wells have "state of the art pollution control equipment to deliver water safely to the public," village administrator Brian Harty said.

The state grant's value is greater than $5.9 million because it will help the village avoid future interest costs, Harty said. In total, village officials said Farmingdale had been reimbursed around $13.5 million for the filtration upgrades.

By Joseph Ostapiuk

joseph.ostapiuk@newsday.com@OstapiukJ

Joseph Ostapiuk covers the Town of Oyster Bay and the city of Glen Cove. He joined Newsday in 2023 after spending more than six years at the Staten Island Advance.