Bethpage, NY — Crash Data, Roads, History & Law

History

Bethpage lies within the Town of Oyster Bay, whose own history traces the Town's founding to 1653, when it says the Native American leader it names as Mohannes sold land in the Town's northern portion to English colonists Samuel Mayo, Peter Wright and William Leverich, with an English patent following from Governor Sir Edmund Andros in 1667.^[1]

The hamlet was formerly known as Central Park. A Town of Oyster Bay archival photograph caption describes "[t]he Central Park (now Bethpage) Fire Department with its new motorized fire engine in front of the fire house on Stewart Avenue opposite Kearney Avenue ca. 1920," confirming the earlier name but not the year it changed.^[1]

Bethpage's twentieth-century economy was shaped by aircraft manufacturing. The Grumman Corporation began manufacturing on a 600-acre Bethpage property in the 1930s, including the production of heavy industrial and military equipment during World War II, according to the background section of a 2018 federal appellate opinion.^[3] Grumman was bought by Northrop Corporation in 1994.^[3] Northrop Grumman's own company history page states that "Bethpage has served as a vital location throughout the history of Northrop Grumman as the production site for projects like the Apollo Lunar Module and F-14 Tomcat."^[2]

How the roads got here

The New York State Department of Transportation's official touring-route description places NY 135, the Seaford-Oyster Bay Expressway, running as "(Merrick Road) Seaford, Bethpage, Syosset (NY 25) – Nassau County," confirming the route passes through Bethpage.^[4] The same DOT document lists the Bethpage State Parkway (reference route NY 907E) as a Nassau County parkway that is state-owned by the Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation but "[m]aintained and [s]igned by NYSDOT."^[4]

NY 24, Hempstead Turnpike, also runs through Bethpage: St. Joseph Hospital's own address, "4295 Hempstead Turnpike, Bethpage, NY 11714," places the turnpike inside the hamlet.^[5]

Law and legal history

Bethpage's most consequential legal history concerns groundwater contaminated by decades of aircraft manufacturing. In Bethpage Water Dist. v. Northrop Grumman Corp., 884 F.3d 118 (2d Cir. 2018), the water district that supplies Bethpage sued Northrop Grumman for negligence, trespass and nuisance, seeking the cost of remediating contamination at two of its wells.^[3] The court's opinion states that the primary contaminant was trichloroethylene (TCE), "linked to liver problems and... a possible carcinogen," and that in 1983 DEC listed the Grumman property, called the "Grumman Aerospace-Bethpage Facility Site," on the state's Registry of Inactive Hazardous Waste Disposal Sites.^[3] In a 1994 tolling agreement between the district and Grumman, Grumman "admitted that the 'source of the contaminants' at Plant 4 was 'located on property owned by Grumman'" and agreed to pay $1.5 million for an air-stripping tower to remove the chemicals.^[3]

The central legal question on appeal was when a groundwater-pollution claim accrues for statute-of-limitations purposes under N.Y. C.P.L.R. § 214-c(2): when contamination is actually detected in a water source, as the district argued, or earlier, when a water provider learns contamination threatens water quality enough to require prompt remedial action, as Northrop Grumman argued.^[3] The Second Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal, holding that the district's claims — including a separate claim about radium contamination, where "there was a seven-year gap between the discovery of the injury in 2006 and the discovery of the source of the injury in 2013" — were time-barred under the three-year pollution statute of limitations.^[3]

Government, courts and policing

As an unincorporated hamlet, Bethpage is governed as part of the Town of Oyster Bay. Town of Oyster Bay Code Ch. 160, "Notification of Defects," adopted November 9, 1982 by Local Law No. 5-1982 and amended in its entirety on July 22, 2003 by Local Law No. 5-2003, provides that "[n]o civil action shall be maintained against the Town of Oyster Bay for injuries or damages to persons or property sustained by reason of any street, highway, bridge, culvert, sidewalk or crosswalk being defective, out-of-repair, unsafe, dangerous or obstructed" without prior written notice served on the Town Clerk.^[6]

The Nassau County Police Department's Eighth Precinct is headquartered inside Bethpage itself, at 299 Hicksville Road, and its own "About Precinct" page lists Bethpage among the eleven communities it covers, describing the precinct's territory as running "north of the Southern State Parkway to Old Country Road and east of the Wantagh State Parkway to the Suffolk County border."^[7]

Criminal charges and smaller civil claims from Bethpage go to the Nassau County District Court at 99 Main Street, Hempstead, which the state court system's page describes as deciding "civil suits involving claims up to $15,000," handling "misdemeanors and lesser offenses," and arraigning "defendants accused of felonies."^[9] Nassau County's Traffic & Parking Violations Agency, at 801 Axinn Avenue, Garden City, states its mission as "the timely adjudication of all traffic, parking and photo enforcement related offenses."^[11] Larger civil matters, including personal-injury actions, go to Nassau County Supreme Court in Mineola.^[10]