Riverhead gets $630K from LaLota for police vehicles and Brownfield remediation project

Rep. Nick LaLota returned to Riverhead Thursday morning to present over half a million dollars in previously approved federal funding to aid in the acquisition of more police vehicles and a crucial remediation project across from Pulaski Street Intermediate School.

State, county and town elected officials joined Mr. LaLota in two ceremonial check presentations. The first $280,000 check went to the Riverhead Town Police Department for the purchase of four new marked vehicles. These remaining funds to support smaller local police departments in Suffolk County is part of the $2.26 million secured in January for the comprehensive Suffolk County Police Department Vehicle Fleet Acquisitions Project.

“These vehicles will give us a new, safe fleet — [one] that is continuously being depleted,” said Riverhead Town Police Chief Ed Frost at the first press conference. “We do put approximately 100,000 miles on a car in a year, so obviously we need a bunch of cars every year.”

Later that morning, Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine accepted a $350,000 check for Riverhead’s Brownfield Remediation Project at the vacant lot at 225 Pulaski Street. This money will fund removal of a deteriorating, leaking underground fuel tank and active soil contamination caused by a former service station that has been abandoned for over 30 years.

“This is an environmental nightmare, and we’ve been stuck,” Mr. Romaine said at the press conference. “Once this is cleaned, this property can be used for a number of things, and that would be up to the Town of Riverhead to decide the zoning and land use for that.”

Officials said remediation will remove this “major obstacle to redevelopment and economic revitalization” and restore it to productive use to complement ongoing downtown revitalization efforts.

Mr. LaLota said everyone on Long Island agrees water quality protection is “not a right issue or left issue” and a necessary investment.

These check presentations come a month after Rep. LaLota presented members of the Riverhead Town Board with $2.25 million in funding to extend public water to roughly 28 Calverton homes with private wells contaminated by “forever chemicals” known as PFAS.

“If one of the town officials could recommend a good chiropractor, I’m getting a little back pain from bringing all this money here to the Town of Riverhead,” Mr. LaLota joked. “We need to ensure that we’re addressing water quality issues, public safety issues, infrastructure issues — and bringing home checks like this are important to our common constituents.”