Northwell Health dismissal request a new wrinkle in contamination lawsuit

A motion this month by Northwell Health to dismiss a lawsuit alleging the hospital system’s air conditioners contaminated groundwater represented another twist in a nearly six-month-old court battle.

Northwell, the state’s largest health care provider, rejected Great Neck North’s claims, which also alleged the contamination left taxpayers on the hook for millions of dollars in monitoring and treatment costs. It argued in the July 3 motion that levels of the chemical, Freon 22, detected in the district’s untreated water supply "have never exceeded any action level or maximum contaminant level, and are not anticipated to do so."

In an email Monday, a Northwell spokesperson said water distributed to water authority customers did not contain Freon 22. The water authority and its lawyers did not respond to requests for comment Monday.

New York State prohibits concentrations of Freon 22 in drinking water of greater than 5 parts per billion. In recent years, Long Island water districts serving Jericho, Glen Cove and Hempstead Village have taken wells out of commission or spent money to address Freon 22 contamination.

While lab studies on animals have shown that exposure to high levels of Freon 22 can cause nervous system and heart problems, health effects on humans from compounds in drinking water are unclear, Newsday has reported. The chemical’s use is being phased out because it damages the environment. It is one of a number of synthetic chemicals that destroy the earth’s protective ozone layer and have created an "ozone hole" over the South Pole, according to the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

Great Neck North serves about 32,400 people living in the villages of Great Neck, Great Neck Estates, Kensington, Kings Point, Saddle Rock, portions of Great Neck Plaza and Thomaston, as well as portions of unincorporated areas of the Town of North Hempstead.

In its February lawsuit, water authority lawyers said Northwell had known since at least 2004 that Freon releases at the health system’s Lakeville Road facility in New Hyde Park were contaminating groundwater, and that concentrations in the water authority’s wells "would likely reach or exceed regulatory standards in the near future." Those readings were commissioned by defense contractor Lockheed, which controls a former Unisys site across the street from Northwell and was monitoring a chemical plume emanating from its own location, according to the lawsuit filed in Nassau County Supreme Court.

Water authority lawyers argued Northwell had not "sufficiently addressed the subsurface Freon-22 plume," forcing the water authority to pay for expensive monitoring and treatment, including the purchase of machines called air strippers to address water contamination at its wells.

The lawsuit did not detail those costs beyond "millions of dollars" and did not make a specific dollar demand.

In an emailed statement Monday, Northwell spokesperson Joseph Kemp said the lawsuit "has no merit. Any traces of Freon-22 in the water are removed by a water treatment system" installed more than a decade ago — to address pollution from the Lockheed site, not from Northwell.

"Even without that treatment the traces of Freon-22 are at levels that are safe and legal," Kemp said, adding that concentrations have fallen in recent years.

In filing the motion to dismiss, Northwell lawyers cited a 2023 presentation by state Department of Health experts who said the chemical could have adverse health effects at contamination levels ranging from 17,500 parts per billion to 71,000 parts per billion. Maximum concentration of the chemical found in the water authority’s supply was 2.4 parts per billion and the water authority’s own tests showed falling concentrations, they said.

They also argued the water authority made its claims after the statute of limitations had expired and that the authority had installed the air strippers not to address Northwell’s Freon but Lockheed’s plume.

In an email Monday, Adrienne Esposito, executive director of Citizens Campaign for the Environment, an advocacy group, said Freon 22 contamination on Long Island was a legacy of old industrial systems.

"Customers of the Great Neck Water Authority should not be burdened with the cost of the remediation technology if the source of pollution can be established," she said.