By Alex Ginsberg
High rates of respiratory disease and cancer plague Queens residents in neighborhoods close to toxic sites, a report released by the city public advocate’s office said this week.
“My office found that children, the elderly and New Yorkers of all ages may be more likely to suffer from a debilitating illness if you live near a Superfund site,” Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum said at a news conference in Sunnyside Sunday. “Yet for two years, the governor has been sitting on his throne allowing the problem to continue.”
The state’s Superfund was set up in 1982 to fund cleanup of toxic sites but has been nearly bankrupt since April 2001 when Gov. George Pataki and the state Legislature disagreed on how to restore funding.
There are 38 Superfund sites in New York City, with Queens claiming 16 — more than any other borough. Eight of the sites are in western queens, three in southeast Queens, two in northeast Queens and three in the Rockaways.
According to the study, which compiled data from city Health Department community profiles, death rates in Long Island City and Astoria from respiratory disease among adults age 45 to 64 are 166 percent higher than the city average.
Superfund sites in western Queens include the Amtrak rail yards in Sunnyside, Roehr Chemicals in Long Island City and the Phelps Dodge Refining Corporation in Maspeth.
Testing at the Phelps Dodge site at 42-02 56th Rd. showed that the soil is contaminated with PCBs and metals, while inorganic metals and volatile organic compounds were found in the groundwater. Phelps Dodge operated a copper smelting plant on the site from 1888 to 1983. State officials recently adopted a $19 million plan to clean the site.
State Sen. George Onorato (D-Long Island City) said he was not surprised that western Queens — dotted with factories, warehouses and power plants — would have high rates of disease.
“I’m concerned about it as well as anybody else,” he said. “I live there, too.”
The state Senate, Assembly and Pataki all have different and competing visions of how to restore funding to clean up the toxic sites. Negotiations to resolve the difference were still ongoing Wednesday.
“There’s a lot of pressure on it,” Onorato said. “And I’m really happy that they’re at least talking.”
But he contended the report would have little effect on those discussions. The primary consideration, he said, would be whether or not the Legislature can find the money.
State Sen. Malcolm Smith (D-St. Albans) said the talks were hung up on two major issues: standards, specifically the difference between residential and commercial properties; and how much industry should pay for the cleanup. He said a proposal for the government to pay 75 percent and industry contribute 25 percent of cleanup costs was being considered, but could still change.
Southeast Queens, where Smith’s district is located, also got bad news from the public advocate’s report. Results showed prostate cancer running 65 percent higher than the city average in adults 45 to 64. The nearby Rockaways had high numbers as well for low birth weight and lung, breast and colorectal cancer.
There are three Superfund sites in southeast Queens — Queens Village’s Deknatel, Jamaica’s West Side Corporation and Ozone Park’s Ozone Industries — and four in the Rockaways.
At the West Side site, the ground became contaminated in the 1970s, when dry cleaning chemicals that were stored in the warehouse leaked from a pipe connecting two tanks. The city and state environmental agencies are working on a 10-year plan to clean the groundwater, soil and vapors.
Although the report did not find high rates of respiratory illness in southeast Queens, parents of children at PS 65, built on top of the former Ozone Industries site at 103-22 99th St., have been complaining for more than a year about poor air conditions at their school. They contend fumes from a chemical plume of trichloroethylene, a carcinogen known to be underneath the site, caused their students to become nauseous, have breathing problems and get fevers last year.
Northeast Queens did not entirely escape notice in the public advocate’s study. High rates for breast cancer and asthma were also found in the Flushing-Clearview area. Nearby Superfund sites include the College Point Oil Lagoon and Fort Totten.
Although the report demonstrates that disease rates are often higher in areas near Superfund sites, it makes clear no scientific causal link between those disease rates and the nearby toxic sites.
Alex Davidson and Courtney Dentch contributed to this story.
Reach reporter Alex Ginsberg by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com or call 718-229-0300, Ext. 157.
