Beachgoers heading to the Rockaways this summer may find a lot of company of the roads, in the form of dump trucks carrying piles of contaminated dirt.
A 9-acre site that was once home to a gas plant is slated to be cleaned up starting in August - an endeavor that involves transporting 80,000 cubic yards of toxin-laden soil through local streets.
Residents are also concerned about what will happen to the expansive property along Beach Channel Drive and Beach 108th St. after the remediation is complete.
The site, owned by National Grid - the utility formerly known as KeySpan - is largely barren except for a small substation.
The state Department of Environmental Conservation is working out details for the cleanup, which will be implemented by National Grid.
But the project has already stirred up concerns.
"People are very fearful when you have toxic waste," said Assemblywoman Audrey Pheffer, who has represented the area for more than 20 years. "We'd rather it didn't go through our streets. We want them to take a barge [from Jamaica Bay], but it seems like they want to truck it off the peninsula."
A gas plant operated on the property from the late 1870s until 1958.
The remediation plan calls for an 8-foot-deep excavation of the site. It also calls for installing ways to control gas vapors and covering the site with clean soil or new concrete.
"The last time they started to dig, there was a terrible smell," said Lew Simon, whose Good Government Democratic Club is near the site. "My eyes started to sting and my face started to burn."
In 1998, the DEC listed the property as "a site where hazardous waste presents a significant threat to the public health or the environment and action is required."
Seven toxins identified as probable human carcinogens were found on the property, according to a 2004 DEC report.
Simon and his neighbors are concerned about how the tainted soil will be removed.
"We don't know what will be leaking out of the trucks," he said. "We don't want all these contaminants in our neighborhood."
National Grid spokeswoman Diana Parisi said there are "no open pathways through which the community has been or can be exposed to the wastes on the site."
The company has made no decisions about the future use of the site, she said.
The DEC estimates there is 1.2 million cubic yards of contaminated material at the site, but it would be too costly and impractical to remediate it all.
The agency's 2004 report also states that "groundwater contamination is evident across the entire site, extending only a small distance beyond the site limits."
Some environmentalists are calling for the property - facing Jamaica Bay - to be preserved as open space, noting the recent housing boom on the peninsula.
"The Rockaways are just overdeveloped," said Don Riepe of the American Littoral Society. "We need more parks. It should be preserved."
Residents are also questioning the timing of the cleanup - during the height of beach season.
"We desperately want it cleaned," said Simon. "But summer is not the right time."
