Developer wants to build three new warehouses in Speonk

Speonk-Riverhead Road, already a hotbed of industrial activity and home to lumber yards, masonry businesses and sand pits, could see the addition of three new warehouses over the next few months.

Southampton developer Edward Broidy currently has plans before the Southampton Town Planning Board that seek to construct three warehouses on his 8.4-acre Speonk property, which already features seven other buildings. If constructed, two of the three new structures will measure 8,400 square feet, and the third will be 4,200 square feet, according to documents on file at Southampton Town Hall.

Mr. Broidy said he wants to construct the buildings within the next few months, after he secures town approval. The developer has spent more than $100,000 on pine barrens development credits that he will use to build the three warehouses.

At a previous Planning Board meeting, Mr. Broidy told board members that he was originally considering installing wind turbines on his property. He said he also briefly flirted with the idea of building a strip club, which would have been permitted in the light industrial zoning district.

In the end, Mr. Broidy applied to build the three additional warehouses that he intends to rent to special trade contractors and other small businesses, according to Southampton Town Planning Director David Wilcox,

Chip Tufano of East Moriches, who owns Chip’s Evergreen Landscaping, recently built a 10,000-square-foot warehouse on 5 acres along Speonk-Riverhead Road in Speonk. According to Planning Board Chairman Dennis Finnerty, Mr. Tufano received approvals from the board for the building a year ago and the structure was first occupied this past spring.

According to Southampton Town Planning Director David Wilcox, Mr. Broidy’s application might fall under a strict state-regulated environmental review because of a plume of contaminated groundwater originating at the BB&S Creosote Lumber Company, Inc. site on Speonk-Riverhead Road. The current tenant of the property, Best Building and Supply Lumber Corp, recently filed for bankruptcy though the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation said the company is not responsible for the groundwater contamination.

Bill Fonda, a DEC spokesman, said he does not think that the DEC will be involved in issuing permits for Mr. Broidy’s warehouses, even though his department is leading the cleanup efforts on the plume.

“We only issue permits for tidal or freshwater wetlands and don’t issue permits for activities out of that area,” Mr. Fonda said. “I don’t see how we would be involved, because it’s a local decision that has to be made by local staff members.”

At a Planning Board meeting held last month, Mr. Wilcox explained that Mr. Broidy’s land is located directly south of lumber company property. The chrome and arsenic plume was first discovered by the DEC in the mid-1980s, and the contaminated groundwater runs south from the lumber yard and along the west side of Speonk-Riverhead Road for about a half a mile, according to the DEC. The DEC is paying for public water hook-ups for homes whose private wells could be contaminated by the plume.

In July, the DEC said that about a half-dozen homeowners who live along either Speonk-Riverhead Road or Fifth Avenue still had private wells. The DEC would pay for costs of hooking up those homes to the water main connection.

But David Chiusano, the project manager of remediation efforts for the plume, said future structures planned for Speonk-Riverhead Road have to provide for their own service hook-up to public water.

“The remedy is only for existing homes,” Mr. Chiusano said. “Anyone who puts in a building has to add their own public water.”

Mr. Chiusano added that the DEC cannot reimburse people who paid for a public water hook-up at any point in the past. “It’s not part of the remedy,” he said.

Mr. Broidy explained that the seven buildings already on his property were connected to public water at his own expense, a job that cost him about $50,000. He added that he also had to install several fire hydrants along Speonk-Riverhead Road.

The three new warehouses that he wants to build will also be connected to public water, he said. “Of course I’m going to hook up to water,” Mr. Broidy said. “It’s going to protect from anything happening.”

Mr. Tufano’s 10,000-square-foot warehouse does not have public water. He said the DEC tested a well on his property and found no contaminants.

Excelsior Plumbing, which has offices in Westhampton Beach, also recently built a warehouse on Speonk-Riverhead Road in Speonk. That building does not have public water either, Mr. Chiusano said.

Mr. Wilcox said the Planning Board will coordinate with the Suffolk County Department of Health Services and the DEC to decide whether or not Mr. Broidy needs to conduct an extensive environmental review before receiving town approval to build the three warehouses. The Planning Board will make that decision within the next few weeks, he said.

The Planning Board did not consider the impact of the plume when it gave Mr. Tufano approval for his warehouse, Mr. Finnerty said. Mr. Tufano’s project had fewer parking spaces and required a lower level of environmental review than Mr. Broidy’s application, Mr. Finnerty explained.

He added that while the public has known about the groundwater plume for some time, the details on the extent of the pollution and remediation plans were only recently released.

“We’ve known about it, but the findings of the BB&S plume have not been public until recently,” Mr. Finnerty said.

In addition to providing public water to some Speonk homes, the DEC is removing nearly 18,400 cubic yards of contaminated dirt from the area and dumping it off-site, explained Mr. Chiusano. DEC officials have said the soil will be placed in a landfill outside of New York State.

Both the soil excavation work and public water hookups are set to begin in March 2010 and will take about a year to complete, Mr. Chiusano said. He added that some of the 18,400 cubic yards of soil that the DEC is removing from the area is on property owned by Excelsior Plumbing.