At N.Y. Beaches, Summer Is Largely a Time of Waste

This is the summer of sand, surf, syringes and sewage on some of New York’s busiest beaches.

Health officials have been forced periodically to keep hundreds of thousands of would-be bathers out of the water because medical waste has been washing ashore and, more recently, because millions of gallons of raw sewage poured into New York’s harbor when a treatment plant became disabled because of a power failure.

Coney Island Affected

All beaches on Staten Island and Brooklyn, including Coney Island and Brighton Beach, remained closed Wednesday after the sewage spill late Monday and Tuesday.

On Staten Island’s Midland Beach, 50 syringes and 10 medication and pill vials appeared with Wednesday’s high tide. Since Sunday, about 150 medical items have been found at Midland Beach.

“Every time the tide comes in, we have found some,” said Barry Adkins, a spokesman for the New York City Department of Health. “. . . We believe it was from unscrupulous dumpers.”

Adding to the difficulty are syringes left on some beaches by drug addicts.

On Long Island, one of three blood samples from medical waste found on the beaches showed evidence of the AIDS virus. But officials said the chances of transmission appeared small because of the harsh environmental conditions to which the virus had been exposed.

AIDS Antibodies Found

“One vial had the antibodies to the AIDS virus present,” said Peter Slocum, a spokesman for the state Department of Health, whose laboratories conducted the tests. “We don’t know if there was live virus in that blood. At some point, there was live virus in that vial.”

The vial, a vacuum tube into which blood is injected for testing, had no label. Such tubes have wide distribution among clinics, laboratories and hospitals, Slocum said, making them almost impossible to trace. The same vial showed the presence of hepatitis-B virus, which has a longer life in the environment outside the body than the AIDS virus.

“The chance of transmission of the (AIDS) or hepatitis virus in the beach environment is extraordinarily low,” state Health Commissioner Dr. David Axelrod said. “The conditions to which the infected samples were exposed almost certainly destroyed most if not all of the active virus.”

But many swimmers remained nervous and watched the sand underfoot carefully when Long Island beaches were reopened.

“Obviously, there is a lot of fear and a lot of unnecessary fear,” Adkins said.

Refuse Haulers Blamed

Infectious material from hospitals is supposed to be incinerated or hauled away in puncture proof, unbreakable red bags. But there is no requirement in New York state that the bags be stamped with the hospital’s name. Investigators believe unscrupulous refuse haulers are improperly dumping hospital waste.

The problem is not new. Some beaches in New Jersey were closed several times last summer when medical waste washed ashore. And, when the Rev. Jesse Jackson visited Woodbridge, N. J., on a campaign stop last month, local officials displayed pill bottles, hypodermic syringes and bags marked “infectious waste” found on the beach.

The officials charged that the waste was coming from a towering municipal landfill on nearby Staten Island, which residents have angrily named “Mt. Koch,” after New York Mayor Edward I. Koch.

New York and Woodbridge last year reached a settlement under which the city promised to pay the New Jersey community $1 million toward cleaning up the beach. But the promise is of little consolation to Patrick Gulics, a 46-year-old Woodbridge worker who has been cleaning the beach for five years.

Suffered Blood Infection

Gulics, who wears rubber gloves for protection, said during the Jackson visit that, in the past, he had even found body parts in glass bottles on the beach. He said that last summer he suffered a blood infection so severe that “every time I combed my hair a big clump would come out.”

New York’s water problems worsened when power failures occurred Monday and Tuesday at the Port Richmond Water Pollution Control Plant on Staten Island. When the plant’s pumps could not function and sewage backed up, it had to be released offshore. At least 25 million gallons of sewage flowed into nearby waters, causing health officials to close the Staten Island and Brooklyn beaches until tests of water samples for bacteria could be completed.

Staff writer Karen Tumulty contributed to this story.