Source: https://atlantic2.sierraclub.org
By: Karl Grossman
The ECU—Environmental Crime Unit—of the Suffolk County district attorney’s office has figured prominently in major stories in the New York region in recent times.
The ECU has been investigating the dumping of 50,000 tons or more of hazardous materials, including asbestos-laden debris, in Brentwood, Central Islip—two largely minority communities in Suffolk—and other area communities. The dumping grounds for the toxic waste include the Roberto Clemente Park (named after the star baseball player from Puerto Rico) in Brentwood.
Also dumped on was a six-home development in Islandia built for Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans. Suffolk County District Attorney Tom Spota, who was a U.S. Marine, said, “Whoever put this contaminated fill on this site did so with the knowledge that war veterans and their families were going to live in these homes. Their deceit is astonishing, leaving these heroes, and their families, in harm’s way.”
The Islip Town attorney has accused a local business family with close ties to the Islip Town GOP as the “responsible party.” The town has cancelled a contract with one of the family’s companies and plans to spend millions of dollars on cleanup.
But the criminal investigation by the ECU will be of special importance in the scandal. Losses of contracts, fines and other civil penalties have long been considered just business expenses for polluting companies.
However, in Suffolk County that changed four decades ago with the appointment by then-Suffolk DA Henry F. O’Brien of an environmental prosecutor, Simon Perchik, and the start of criminal prosecution of polluters and other environmental lawbreakers in the county.
“If polluters only have to pay civil penalties, that, they figure, is the cost of doing business. Facing criminal charges—that’s an entirely different thing,” commented Perchik in a recent interview.
His work led to creation of the ECU. With his appointment in 1975 as Suffolk’s environmental prosecutor, Perchik, now 90, became what he says “may have been” the first fulltime environmental prosecutor in any DA’s office in the U.S.
Si has always been a fighter. In World War II, at 21, he was a bomber pilot flying B-17s over Germany and elsewhere in Europe.
His first environmental battle came before he moved permanently to The Springs in East Hampton Town. He was living on Staten Island, practicing law in Manhattan, and was outraged to find that “when you got off the ferry” from Staten Island “you had to walk into clouds of fumes from idling buses.” He brought a lawsuit and “they stopped idling the buses.” Other litigation followed.
When O’Brien was elected Suffolk DA and considered having an environmental prosecutor, a former chief assistant Suffolk DA, Maurice Nadjari, suggested Perchik. O’Brien worked with Nadjari both in the Suffolk DA’s office and when Nadjari was “superprosecutor” going after governmental corruption in New York City. “Maury and I have been friends since we were in [NYU] law school together,” noted Perchik.
Suffolk County faced a major battle when the Long Island Lighting Company (LILCO) challenged charges brought by Perchik and the DA’s office involving its failure to upgrade power plant smokestacks with anti-pollution “scrubbers.” LILCO insisted Suffolk County couldn’t follow state law in its environmental prosecutions. The highest court in New York, the Court of Appeals, upheld that contention.
When then-New York State Attorney General Louis Lefkowitz “heard about the decision, he went to the state legislature,” recounted Perchik, and had a bill introduced—which passed—enabling Suffolk and other  New York counties to use state law.
That’s the way it’s been ever since. The state has had a role in exposing the dumping situation. DA Spota says it was information from the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) that triggered the ECU-led probe by his office—the “DEC came to us,” he said.
The mission of ECU, said Spota, is to “investigate and prosecute crimes that threaten the health, safety and environment of Suffolk County.” He ran through the list of poisons found in the materials dumped. In addition to asbestos, toxic chemicals found included arsenic and cancer-causing cadmium, lead and cobalt, as well as pesticides including chlordane, Dieldrin and DDT, all three long banned in the U.S.
Spota spoke about how environmental prosecution here has been broadened in his 13 years as Suffolk DA. “We have experienced detectives and prosecutors who I have sent for training and continuing legal education,” he said. The Suffolk DA’s office itself has grown. “We’re now number 13 in the country in terms of size,” said Spota. The office has 190 assistant DAs.
As for Si Perchik, he has gone from environmental prosecutor to being a nationally noted poet—with his many poems published in books and magazines, including The New Yorker.
Journalist Karl Grossman is a member of the Long Island Group and professor of journalism at the State University of New York/College at Old Westbury. For nearly 25 years, he has hosted a nationally aired TV program, Enviro Close-Up.