Bethpage-Tribune_1988-06-22

              BETHPAGE 1)1 ( ' ti
Island Trees
VOL. 21 NO. 35
Plainedge
also serving
Jeaford
JUNE 22 - JUNE 28.1988
Old Bethpage Plainview ^
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Town Board Signs
Landmark Agreement
THANKS: Arthur (Wally) Reichardt (center), District Superintendent of the
Bethpage Volunteer Fire Department receives thanks from Senator John R. Dunne
(r.) and Assemblyman Philip Healey for his assistance at the Community Forum
which Healey and Dunne hosted recently at the flrehouse on Broadway.
A number of local residents took advantage of the opportunity to provide grass
roots feedback to their elected State officials by addressing Dunne and Healey on a
wide range of issues of concern to the community.
Tax Aid for Local Schools
Senator Norman J. Levy (R,C-Merrick)
and Assemblyman Fred Par-ola
(R,C-Wantagh) announced that
they have introduced legislation which
will provide emergency state aid to Nas­sau
County and other Long Island and
New York State high tax-low wealth
school districts, (residential areas with
few commercial properties to help
shoulder the tax burden). Under the
terms of the Levy-Parola bill, the Mas-sapequa,
Farmingdale and Plainedge
School Districts would receive
$176,324, $373,631, and $102,973,
respectively in additional high tax aid
for the 1988-89 school year, bringing the
total high tax aid for the Massapequa,
Farmingdale and Plainedge School
Districts to $842,382, $1,359,758, and
$647,373, respectively. The bill is co-sponsored
in the Assembly by Assem­blyman
Phil Healey, (R,C-Massapequa).
Levy said that the legislation, which is
expected to pass the Senate shortly, is a
result of an agreement between the
Senate Majority and the nine member
Long Island Senate Delegation, who
"held up" enactment of the State's Local
Assistance Budget for 19 days in order
to achieve greater equity for Long
Island's school districts.
Levy explained that he and Long
Island's other Republican legislators
believed that the state aid portion of the
1988-89 aid to localities budget fell
short of their goal of the level of funding
for high tax-low wealth school districts.
"At fault are some of the school aid
formulas, like the high tax aid formula,
which are based partly on property
values that have recently soared in
'paper valuation', particularly on Long
Island, making communities on Long
Island have little, or in some cases, no
commercial property tax revenues to
help shoulder the tax burden, so all of
the costs are passed on to the residential
property owners in those districts, caus­ing
severe economic hardships for those
taxpayers, particularly the elderly and
those living on fixed incomes," said
Levy and Parola.
Levy and Parola said that another
result of this year's Budget battle was
the creation of a Commission to study
the entire method of State school aid
formulas. "The State aid formulas, as
presently designed, do not adequately
deal with the high cost of operating
school districts in the New York metro­politan
region. The formulas must be
revamped to take into account such fac­tors
as the higher salaries that are
required in this region and increased
costs for electricity, hardware and other
(Continued on page 9)
Oyster Bay Town Supervisor Angelo
A. Delligatti announced today, June
14th, that he and the members of the
Town Board had passed a resolution
that effectively ended discussions con­cerning
the remediation of the Old
Bethpage landfill site.
"At this morning's Town Board meet­ing
we accepted a settlement and Con­sent
Order signaling the implementa­tions
of the Town designed remedial
action plan," said Delligatti. "This plan,
already accepted by the Environmental
Protection Agency and the State of New
York, will ultimately remove all envir­onmental
concerns from the site once
and for all, from the Superfund list."
By and large the cost of this
$7,000,000 remediation plan will be
paid for by those who, over the course
of many years, used the landfrll for the
disposal of their products and by­products.
Over the years a number of
these chemicals have been found
hazardous and have, through normal
leaching, found their way into the
ground water below the landfill.
Concomitant with the plan is the clay
capping of all areas of the landfill which
are not currently sealed. This will pre­vent
any further leaching.
In tracing the history of this land­mark
settlement and Consent Order,
Delligatti noted that the Old Bethpage
landfill site and others designated as
Superfund sites were selected on com­puter
modeling NOT on scientific data
or laboratory testing. "The preliminary
designation, exploited out of all reaso­nable
proportions, indicated only a
need to closely examine the area," he
said.
Delligatti continued, "The Town,
concerned and responsive to the envir­onmental
questions raised by this pre-
Eighth Squad Detective Al Carey
reports the details of the arrest on June
l l , a t 2:35 A.M. ofa 17 year old Beth­page
man for Burglary, Criminal
Mischief and Grand Larceny.
John Biesty, 17, of 3888 Avoca Ave.,
Bethpage, allegedly broke into Alon
Beer Distributors, located at 302-308
Broadway in Bethpage, by cutting a
hole through the roof. Once inside
Biesty got into a truck, started it up, and
smashed it into a second truck. He then
got into a third truck and drove it back­wards
through an overhead steel door.
liminary designation, began negotiating
with the State to establish procedures
for gathering the necessary scientific
data which would delineate what, if any,
contamination existed at the landfill."
At the same time the Town and State
agreed to the interim Consent Order,
the State commenced legal action
against three more principal users of the
landfill: Grumman Aerospace Corp.,
Cerro Conduit Co., Inc., and Occiden­tal
Chemical Corp. (formerly Hooker
Chemical). These companies, the
Town's insurance carriers and nearly
200 third-party defendants have now
resolved, through complicatedd negoti­ations,
the overall settlement which was
just approved by the Town Board.
"The monetary settlement calls for
the Town to be paid approximately
$4,500,000 from the defendants and
$750,000 from the insurance carriers.
Seventy-five percent (75%) of the
remaining $1,750,000 required to effec­tuate
this cleanup will be eligible for
State funding," noted Delligatti.
In approving the Town's water reme­diation
plan the State and the EPA
approved those already established
environmental programs which address
other aspects of site cleanup. These
include the perimeter gas control and
methane extraction systems and the
previously capped areas.
"The Town of Oyster Bay has come a
long way," said Delligatti. "Being a
'guinea pig' has some advantages. We
can now look back over the years of
negotiations with the State, sometimes
harmonious, sometimes acrimon ious,
with a sense of satisfaction and the real­ization
that other municipalities still
have a long road ahead. Sooner or later,
all municipalities with landfills will have
to complete this process."
crashing it into a fourth truck which was
parked outside the building. However,
Biesty had triggered an alarm when he
had first entered the building and the
police were waiting for him on the out­side.
Biesty was placed under arrest by
Officers Robert Ligouri and Kevin
Vienne of the Eighth Precinct.
Damage to the overhead door
exceeds $5,000 and the damage to the
trucks is estimated at over $3,0(X). No
injuries were reported.
Biesty is charged with Burglary 3rd.
Criminal Mischief 2nd, and Grand Lar-cenv
3rd