Brookhaven buys 40 acres of Lawrence Aviation Superfund site for open space

Brookhaven Town has completed the purchase of a 40-acre portion of the Lawrence Aviation Superfund site at Port Jefferson Station that will be preserved to protect open space, officials said Thursday.

The city borrowed $400,000 to purchase a wooded parcel that would serve as a buffer between neighboring homes, a solar array and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority train station that Suffolk County officials hope to see on other parts of the 126-acre site, city Supervisor Dan Panico said in an interview. .

The city’s purchase was completed Wednesday, Suffolk County spokesman Michael Martino said.

The site at the northwest end of the property on Sheep Pasture Road is the first piece of vacant property to be sold as part of a complex plan to sell the shuttered aircraft parts plant after years of litigation and a $50 million federal cleanup.

“Obviously there are opportunities to develop other (Lawrence Aviation) sites, but it was important to the city of Brookhaven that we preserve this site,” Panico said. “We want to preserve as much woodland as possible.”

The southern portion of the Lawrence property has been reserved for a solar power plant, and officials hope to sell the northeastern portion to the MTA for a possible Long Island Rail Road station.

Lawrence Aviation Industries closed in 2003, three years after the property entered the federal Superfund cleanup program following the discovery of trichloroethene, or TCE, a solvent used to remove paint and grease. Inspectors also found acidic waste, oils, sludge, metals and other toxic debris at the site.

Federal prosecutors last year announced settlement intended to sell parts of the property to pay off debt accumulated by Lawrence Aviation owner Gerald Cohen, who died in 2020, leaving about $17.9 million in unpaid property taxes and $48.1 million he had to pay for the federal cleanup, officials said at the time.

The federal agreement temporarily transferred the Lawrence site to the Suffolk County Land Bank, a nonprofit arm of county government that manages so-called “brownfield” properties. Last December, the land bank struck a deal to sell about 40 acres to the MTA for $10.

In June, the MTA asked county officials to more time to complete your purchase. MTA officials did not explain the reason, but representatives for Suffolk and Brookhaven said it was done to give officials time to reroute the route. state hiking trail it crosses some potential MTA property.

The MTA deadline was extended by county officials to Dec. 31.

MTA spokesman David Steckel said Thursday he had “no update” on the purchase.