Suffolk eyes Westhampton junkyard

BY RICK BRAND | rick.brand@newsday.com

On a site that once housed Cold War missiles, Suffolk County, over four decades, has amassed what officials estimate is a $1-million-plus junkyard on a back road in Westhampton that officials are now looking to tap to help close the county's looming budget debt.

The 186-acre property, according to officials, has 2,824 rusting cars, trucks, trailers and even a rider mower, plus dozens of discarded police vehicles that are sometimes cannibalized for parts. All are items the county is looking to sell as it tries to find new revenue.

Beyond that open sea of crashed or seized vehicles are four rows of rundown, 60-foot-long concrete-block buildings with steel roofs that once opened to launch four-story-high Air Force missiles. The missiles, tipped with 10-kiloton nuclear warheads, could be sent 200 miles over the Atlantic Ocean to shoot down oncoming Russian bombers.

The missiles that filled the 56 above-ground one-story silos from 1959 to 1964 are long gone and those buildings are piled to the rafters with the detritus of decades of county operations.

"This is where county stuff came to die," said Presiding Officer William Lindsay (D-Holbrook), who is spearheading the effort to convert the scrap into cash. "You scratch your head how some of this stuff even got here."

In one building, where the garage-like door was broken, there were mainframe computers dating back to the 1960s, and monitors and keyboards with brand names like Burroughs that existed in the '70s and '80s. Next to those high-tech discards was a dentist's chair and a rusting stove.

Another building held boxes of unused work shoes and boots, a washer and dryer, broken desks, bookcases and typewriters, both manual and electric.

Gilbert Anderson, Suffolk public works commissioner, said that at one time each county department had use of one of the former missile silos. Most stopped using them years ago, he said, adding that about six to 10 are still used for storage.

Suffolk lawmakers, in amending County Executive Steve Levy's $2.64-billion budget in November, added $1.2 million in revenue based on plans to sell the junk at the former missile site.

The legislature also approved a resolution directing the county to issue requests for proposals to dispose of the cars and the buildings' contents. Officials expect the bids to be out by February and a decision made sometime in the spring.

Lindsay said he got the idea to sell the county leftovers after lawmakers moved to regulate the scrap-metal industry to rein in the growing plague of metal thefts spurred by an increase in value. He said the county should cash in on its own discards and at the same time, make new storage space available.

Lindsay however, acknowledges the plan is not without obstacles. He said some of the autos had been involved in crimes or accidents that are still tied up in litigation. He said he plans to meet with Police Commissioner Richard Dormer and District Attorney Thomas Spota to devise a streamlined way to clear vehicles for sale. Police officials said the county takes ownership of 700 to 1,100 vehicles a year, although some are sold at departmental auctions.

He also said mining materials of value from the former missile sheds for scrap dealers is "very labor-intensive." To that end, he has talked to Sheriff Vincent DeMarco about using work crews of prisoners to separate materials that might be valuable. He could not say how many prisoners would be used in the process.

Levy vetoed Lindsay's proposal during the budget, only to be overridden. He worried that revenue from scrap sales would not materialize until 2010 and called the profit projections "extremely optimistic." But Levy has signed the resolution to seek proposals from scrap dealers.

"I don't have any problem with the concept," he said. "And now that it's in the budget, let's see what we can get."


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