Lake Ronkonkoma residents angered with debris removal from latest storm

Suffolk County Department of Public Works head Phil Berdolt says they are planning to clean up the lake but were focused on safety first.

News 12 Staff

Jul 19, 2022, 9:45 PM

Updated 738 days ago

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Some Suffolk residents are frustrated with the way crews are cleaning debris from Thursday's pop-up storm.
Dominic Ceely, of Lake Ronkonkoma, says the Suffolk County Department of Public Works and PSEG Long Island came through to clean up and dumped the mess onto his lawn and into the shoreline.
"I don't understand why they would do that - it's real upsetting," Ceely says.
Evelyn Volgraff is head of the Lake Ronkonkoma Improvement Group, an organization focused of cleaning up decades of trash dumped on the lake.
She is also upset with the way that officials are handling the cleanup.
"To see them take the brush and the debris, which was mostly the utilities that did it, and dump it over the guardrail and drive away - that's disheartening," Volgraff says.
Volgraff says that there is about a quarter of a mile of debris that has been dumped on the lake that "needs to be cleaned up now."
Suffolk County Department of Public Works head Phil Berdolt says they are planning to clean up the lake but were focused on safety first.
"Any debris that we moved to the side of the road for the time being just to make the road safe, we will get back and clean it up," Berdolt says. "Same thing around the lake - we were involved in doing a lot of the cleanup of the lake and we don't want to see anything dumped in there."
Volgraff says she hopes it happens sooner rather than later.
"This is not acceptable - they have to clean this up and they say they will, so let's hope they do," Volgraff says.


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