A Mamaroneck environmental contractor is challenging state agencies for allegedly running up cleanup and relocation costs for a Yonkers oil spill.
Northeast Environmental Inc. claims that the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and the Department of Health (DOH) approved excessive expenses for relocating a family and paying contractors the state dispatched to the spill, in a complaint filed July 29 in Westchester Supreme Court.
“The state expenditures in connection with this spill are excessive, inflated, and unreasonable by any objective standard,” the complaint states, and “include arguably fraudulent expenses.”
The state claims that Northeast is liable for $2.3 million in cleanup costs, according to the complaint, because it had installed an underground storage tank at an apartment building where state officials believe the spill originated, one-tenth of a mile away from the cleanup site.
The state agencies did not respond to an email request for comment, but on July 29 New York Attorney General Lititia James responded to a nearly identical lawsuit filed last year by Sprain Associates, the apartment building owner. She denied the allegations and said DEC and DOH had acted appropriately.
The oil spill was detected in May 2019 by Yan and Valeriya Klats, owners of a house at 481 Bronxville Road, in Yonkers’ Cedar Knolls neighborhood.
The Klats had previously replaced an oil tank, according to Northeast, because they had smelled oil in their basement. But they had not reported the problem to city or county regulators, and the old tank and the underground piping were never examined to determine the source of the leak.
When the Klats reported the new spill, a DEC official went to an apartment building at 720 Tuckahoe Road that used the same kind of fuel oil the Klats used. He asked the building owner to excavate around the underground storage tank and pipes, to determine if they were leaking.
Northeast discovered three small pinholes in a pipe but found no fuel tank leak, “minimal fuel oil staining” and no puddles. The pipe and tank were replaced.
DEC dispatched Castlton Environmental Contractors, Nanuet, for an emergency response at the Klats house, and Precision Environmental Services Inc., Long Island, Queens, to monitor Castlton.
An emergency response typically takes several days or weeks, Northeast claims, and this project was not complicated. Two trenches had to be dug, three sump pumps installed, groundwater filtered and contaminated soil removed. Once the immediate spill was cleaned up, the project could shift to a long-term remediation plan.
But Castlton, according to Northeast, ran up excessive charges and “perpetuated its emergency response … for almost one year” until DEC fired the company.
Northeast did not name Castlton as a defendant in the case, and according to DEC geologist Kevin Hale, Castleton completed its portion of the assigned work and was not fired. He also said that the cleanup at the Tuckahoe Road apartment building was not difficult but the work at the Klat’s property was very complex.
Now, three years later, Northeast claims, the house remains uninhabitable and little has been done to implement a final remediation plan.
The DOH, meanwhile, had determined that the house was unsafe and relocated the Klats at state expense. At first, they were put in a penthouse apartment overlooking the Hudson River in Dutchess County at $8,250 a month, and then in a house in New Canaan, Connecticut at $6,500 a month. They were paying $3,405 a month on a mortgage for their 1950s, 1,600-square-foot ranch house.
The state has paid $167,484 in lodging fees on behalf of the Klats, the complaint states, and another $49,066 in direct reimbursements for storing their belongs and other costs.
Northeast claims that the state has produced no evidence that the spill originated at the apartment building. It is asking the court to find that the state agencies abused their authority by incurring excessive and unjustified cleanup and relocation costs and to order the state to recover its costs from the contractors it hired.
Northeast is represented by New Jersey attorneys Agnes Antonian and Nigyar Alieva.
