29 Polluters To Collectively Reimburse State $1.575 Million For Suffolk County Contaminated Site Cleanup

NEW YORK, NY (February 6, 2007)—Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo and the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) today announced that the State of New York obtained $1,575,000 from 29 private and public entities that had disposed of waste in the North Sea Landfill — a State Superfund site located in Suffolk County.

The Town of Southampton, with partial funding from the State and working cooperatively with the DEC, had cleaned up the landfill in the mid-1990's by capping the site and venting gases from the landfill.  The Attorney General’s Office and DEC tracked down information on many of the companies that had generated the waste and the private waste haulers who had dumped the waste at the landfill.  That process led to negotiations with many of the companies that are now reimbursing the State for costs associated with the cleanup. 

“Contaminated waste sites must be cleaned up and polluters should pay for their own pollution,” Attorney General Cuomo said.  “This polluted waste site would never have been cleaned up without a state-funded Superfund program and DEC’s cleanup oversight.  We will continue to keep a vigilant eye and will take whatever legal action necessary and appropriate to protect the health of the people and the environment of this state.”