Naval Weapons Industrial Reserve Plant, Calverton
Naval Weapons Industrial Reserve Plant, Calverton | |
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Part of United States Navy | |
Riverhead, New York | |
Coordinates | 40°54′45″N 72°47′44″W / 40.91250°N 72.79556°W |
Type | Aircraft manufacturing plant |
Site information | |
Controlled by | Navy |
Open to the public | Partially |
Site history | |
In use | 1956–1996 |
Calverton Executive Airpark | |||||||||||||||
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AMSL 75 ft / 23 m | | ||||||||||||||
Coordinates | 40°54′54″N 072°47′31″W / 40.91500°N 72.79194°W | ||||||||||||||
Runways | |||||||||||||||
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Naval Weapons Industrial Reserve Plant, Calverton (NWIRP) was a government-owned, contractor-operated (GOCO) facility which had the mission of designing, fabricating, and testing prototype aircraft from 1956 until 1996, in
Geography
The Naval Weapons Industrial Reserve Plant (NWIRP) is located on Grumman Boulevard in
History
In about 1950, the United States Navy purchased about 6,000 acres (2,400 ha) on the
The Navy built, among other things, a 10,000-foot (3,000 m) runway. It is labeled on topographic maps as Grumman Peconic River Airport[5] with an FAA code of CTO.
The plant was most associated with assembling, flight testing, refitting, and retrofitting naval aircraft like the
During the Space Race, Grumman built a mockup of the lunar surface to test its proposed Lunar Roving Vehicle. Many of the lunar astronauts were said to have visited the plant then.[citation needed]
In 1965, New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller proposed converting the airport into the fourth New York City metropolitan airport, joining Laguardia Airport, John F. Kennedy Airport and Newark Airport. The proposal was abandoned following opposition from both Grumman and local residents.[citation needed]
In 1974, when the two
In 1994, Grumman merged with
On July 17, 1996, TWA Flight 800 exploded on departure from John F. Kennedy International Airport at about 13,000 feet, falling into the Atlantic off of Long Island. The NTSB brought the wreckage to a hangar it had leased in Calverton for examination and reconstruction of the Boeing 747. It was stored here until 2003, when it was moved to an NTSB facility in Ashburn, Virginia.[8]
In September 1998, about 2,640 acres of developed property were transferred to the
Environmental contamination
In the mid-1980s, the Navy and Grumman knew, that their operations on the site had contaminated groundwater, according to court documents of an insurance case between Northrop Grumman and its liability insurance companies.[9] As of 2022, heavy metals,
Water supply wells are not used for drinking water, but irrigation. Recent hydrogeologic investigations have demonstrated that the contaminated groundwater migrates towards the Peconic River.[3]
In 1999, about 2,935 acres of undeveloped land from the site were transferred to the
Since April 28, 1998, the Calverton Restoration Advisory Board has been overseeing the Navy cleanup,[9] including at Enterprise Park (EPCAL). As of June 2021, the Department of the Navy admitted on-site groundwater and soil contamination with PFAS and was "undertaking a comprehensive strategy to address releases of PFAS from Navy facilities like NWIRP",[10] but denied responsibility for off-site groundwater pollution. When PFAs detected in 15% of the private residential wells south of the site were above New York's maximum contaminant levels, Navy maintained it was not bound by the state's limits, since there were no federal limits yet.[9]
References
- ^ Airport information for Calverton Executive Airpark (IATA:CTO, FAA:3C8) at Great Circle Mapper.
- PDF, effective 2007-10-25
- ^ a b c d US EPA, OLEM (2017-08-18). "Hazardous Waste Cleanup: Naval Weapons Industrial Reserve Plant in Calverton, New York". www.epa.gov. Retrieved 2022-08-05. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
- ^ a b "Riverhead IDA: Enterprise Park (EPCAL)". www.riverheadida.org. Retrieved 2022-08-05.
- ^ TopoZone.com map. Retrieved 2007-11-09.
- ^ Grumman Memorial Park
- ^ Shaman, Diana (February 25, 1996). "Planners Ponder 2,900-Acre Northrop Grumman Site". The New York Times. Retrieved 2009-08-02.
- ^ Tyrrell, Joie (July 15, 2011). "TWA Flight 800 wreckage is still studied". Newsday.
- ^ a b c Civiletti, Denise (2021-06-10). "Navy, under fire for groundwater pollution in Manorville, may use unpublicized survey to justify dissolving Grumman cleanup advisory board". RiverheadLOCAL. Retrieved 2022-08-05.
- ^ Tim Gannon (2021-06-28). "Will EPCAL contamination spread east? Manorville resident says 'everybody will be affected'". Riverhead News. Retrieved 2022-08-05.