9 Nassau water districts sue chemical companies for dioxane removal costs

Facing multimillion dollar costs for new pollution controls, nine Nassau County water suppliers have sued chemical manufacturers for 1,4-dioxane contamination, which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency lists as a likely carcinogen.

The separate lawsuits filed in Eastern District of U.S. District Court in Central Islip contend Dow Chemical Co., Ferro Corp. and Vulcan Materials Co. knew or should have known the compound commonly used in a manufacturing solvent from the 1960s to 1990s would pollute groundwater, including instructing commercial users to dispose of waste solvents by pouring them onto the ground or in trenches for evaporation or burning.

The lawsuits — which seek unspecified damages and cleanup costs — cite defective design, failure to warn about the dangers, negligence, public nuisance and trespass. The state has said the cost of cleanup would be more than $300 million.

"The public shouldn’t have to bear the cost of removing 1,4-dioxane from their drinking water. The responsibility falls on the companies that manufactured the chemicals, and promoted its use," said Katie Jones, an attorney with San Francisco-based law firm Sher Edling LLP who is representing the water suppliers.

The water providers — Port Washington Water District, Roslyn Water District, Water Authority of Great Neck North, Oyster Bay Water District, Garden City Park Water District, West Hempstead Water District, Carle Place Water District, Jericho Water District, and Albertson Water District — serve more than 200,000 residential and business customers, Jones said.

A similar lawsuit was filed in 2017 by the Suffolk County Water Authority, which serves about 1.2 million residents, against the chemical companies, as well as household product manufacturers, over products in which 1,4-dioxane had been detected as a byproduct. That case is being heard in federal court.

A Dow Chemical spokeswoman called the lawsuits "without merit."

"Rather than go after the companies on Long Island directly responsible for the contamination, the water suppliers brought this suit against Dow even though Dow did not conduct any operations on Long Island that are a source of contamination," Ashley E. Mendoza wrote in a statement. No human tests have linked 1,4-dioxane to cancer, she said, and added that water suppliers consistently have stated the drinking water is safe.

But Jones said that because 1,4-dioxane has spread so far through soil and groundwater, it can be difficult to pinpoint where contamination came from.

Ferro and Vulcan representatives did not return requests for comment.

While there's no federal drinking water standard, New York State is expected later this year to finalize a first-in-the-nation drinking water standard for 1,4-dioxane, which the EPA said has been associated with liver and kidney damage, as well as increased cancer risk.

Removing the chemical to the state standard won't be cheap. State health officials last month estimated the cost to treat 89 wells in New York at $318 million in capital costs and $13 million a year in operating expenses.

Combined with costs to treat other recently discovered contaminants that pose health risks, it "is going to take millions, if not billions of dollars over time to treat," Ty Fuller, chairman of the Long Island Water Conference, which represents water providers, said in a statement Thursday. "The legal actions being pursued by several of Long Island's water providers seeks to appropriately assign culpability to the polluters and/or manufacturers of these contaminants and get them on the hook for cleaning up the mess they created."

The man-made 1,4-dioxane is found in trace amounts throughout Long Island’s drinking water, and the highest detection in the nation was measured at a well in Hicksville. It was widely used in industrial settings in a solvent used to dissolve greasy and oily substances from machined metal products, and is likely a residue of Long Island’s industrial era of aviation, manufacturing and agricultural operations. Long Island sits above an aquifer that provides the drinking water for the population.

In 2017, Hicksville Water District filed a lawsuit against owners of Philips Electronics, a light manufacturer, that operated from the 1950s until 1989. That water district's representatives and attorneys were not available to comment Thursday. Philips Electronics' attorney did not respond to a request for comment.

By David M. Schwartz

dschwar1@newsday.comschwartznewsNY

David Schwartz covers environmental issues. A native Long Islander, he's worked at Newsday since 2013.