Patriot Recycling owner pleads guilty in dumping case, will pay max fine

The owner of the Youngs Avenue property in Calverton, where Patriot Recycling illegally dumped debris, will fork over more than $5,500 after pleading guilty to multiple town code violations.

Joseph DeFigueroa, owner of both Youngs Avenue LLC and the Oceanside-based facility and transfer station Patriot Recycling, admitted to five of the 11 charges.

He will pay the maximum $5,630 fine for violations that included excavation without a permit, excavation on exempt premises, overgrown weeds that exceeded a 10-inch vegetation height limit, littering and yard waste accumulation, and going against permitted uses.

Six other charges were dismissed.

The guilty plea ends a dispute that began when residents raised concerns about the site over the summer.

In June, Calverton residents expressed concerns about an overwhelming odor permeating through their neighborhood from the former Warner Nursery property. Residents also claimed to be experiencing an array of health problems as a result of the smell.

A stop work order was then issued by Riverhead Town code enforcement, citing violations of town codes 301 and 229 for the alleged “use of the property as a storage facility for mulch/yard waste with no active farming being done.”

Residents pressed for testing of the site and expressed worries about potential air, water and soil impacts at a Sept. 3 Town Board meeting.

The Suffolk County Department of Health visited the Patriot property in July, but “did not see anything that they thought merited sampling,” Riverhead Town attorney Erik Howard said at the time.

The state Department of Environmental Conservation also inspected the piles during the same visit, Mr. Howard said. The DEC reported that the composition of the material is within the approximately 0.5% limit of allowable non-organic material in the piles, making it an exempt composting facility at the time of inspection. However, Patriot Recycling had double the amount of the permitted 3,000 cubic yards of trimmings once the removal was done.

Mr. Howard confirmed in an email on Dec. 19 the total was 6,210 cubic yards — exceeding the DEC’s original estimations.

Due to the stockpiling of mulch and related organic material, Youngs Avenue LLC was ordered by the town to “immediately commence removal of all mulch, wood debris, and any related stockpiled material from the property to a duly licensed and permitted facility” by Sept. 29.

Once Mr. DeFigueroa signed a stipulation and temporary operations agreement for the one-time removal, town officials granted a limited authorization for Patriot Recycling to use necessary machinery and personnel to solely remove the existing, unfinished materials from the premises.

The company was required to remove all “unfinished/unscreened organic material” by the deadline, but hit a few setbacks with faulty equipment and inclement weather. Approximately 520 cubic yards were removed per day during the process.

Patriot Recycling was initially hauling materials to a licensed facility in Cutchogue, but was blocked by Southold Town officials who were concerned about the potentially harmful composition of the materials being dumped, and demanded testing.

As a result, the Suffolk County Department of Health did decide to test at the request of both Riverhead and Southold town supervisors. It is unclear if those results have been made available yet.

The Youngs Ave. owner completed the removal of the stockpiled material on Oct. 24, Mr. Howard said.

The deadline for the company to pay the fine for the five convictions is Dec. 26.

Toqui Terchun, president of the Greater Calverton Civic Association, said Patriot Recycling also paid the town a $10,500 reimbursement for the hired environmental consultant. Overall, she said she and others impacted by this ordeal were disappointed in the low number of fines.

She hopes the town attorney’s office will consider evaluating the personal costs, such as medical and veterinary bills, that residents have endured because of Patriot Recycling’s actions.

“I really like to see people made more whole,” Ms. Terchun said. “They’ve had to endure just a tremendous amount of not just inconvenience and not using the property to their enjoyment because of the fouling of the air, but they really were harmed by it.”

Editor’s note: This story has been updated.