Verizon given more time to fix cell station

Richard Tedesco

Facing possible shutdown of a substation for northeast corridor cell-phone service, Verizon Wireless on Wednesday was granted an extension until April 13 by a Nassau County Supreme Court judge to complete work to reduce noise from a back-up generator on the border of Mineola and Garden City, according to a lawyer representing Mineola residents suing Verizon.

Attorney Joseph Sullivan said he agreed to the extension on behalf of his clients, who live adjacent to the Verizon facility on 13th Avenue in Mineola, because the telecom company has demonstrated progress in complying with a January directive from Supreme Court Judge Ute Wolf Lally. At the time, Lally ordered Verizon to resolve issues of excessive noises and noxious fumes emanating from the facility by Feb. 23 or face a shutdown.

“[Verizon] seems to be complying with the process. There has been a reduction in the noise,” said Sullivan, who originally filed a motion to shut down the facility in October.

Verizon officials said the facility in Garden City handles 1 billion cell-phone calls annually, according to Sullivan.

During a conference with Judge Lally on Jan. 5, attorneys representing Verizon presented plans to retrofit the cell-switching facility with insulation and additional baffling to muffle the noise produced from diesel generators on the facility’s roof and northeast wall and air conditioning compressors. The projected cost of the work was placed at $300,000.

The 13th Avenue residents brought a suit last fall against Verizon and the Village of Garden City, where the facility is located, seeking $5 million in damages for having to endure what they described as a year of recurrent noise and offensive fumes from the facility. The residents claim that the recurrent noise has interfered with their ability to sleep and live normally.

In a court conference on Wednesday, attorneys representing Verizon said the height of parapets on the side of the building had been raised and additional insulation installed between the parapets and the heating, ventilation and air conditioning units on the roof of the facility. The facility houses transmission equipment that produces excessive heat and must be maintained at constant temperatures to function properly.

The attorneys said that Verizon required additional time to install a carburetor to modify the loud grinding noise produced by a back-up generator, which has been largely silent during the past month, according to Sullivan.

Sullivan said the extension would allow his own engineering consultant to measure noise emitted from the building in warmer weather.

“Once the remediation has been completed by Verizon, they have consented to having the plaintiffs’ expert present,” Sullivan said. “The other reason that I wasn’t so demanding is to see whether this HVAC noise has been abated.”

John Ferriera, the 13th Avenue resident who spearheaded the effort to seek legal redress, said the generator and compressor noise had lessened since the January court conference. But he said the loud humming noise from the aire-conditioning equipment has resumed within the past week.

“The noise was still there the last couple of days,” Ferreira said.

Most 13th Avenue residents have given depositions in the case, which will proceed after Verizon resolves the immediate issues of concern to the residents, according to Sullivan.

Sullivan said he plans to conduct depositions of Garden City building inspector Michael Filippon and Verizon employees at the facility “to see what in hell Verizon got away with to let this occur.”

Sources say Verizon may not have been required to file permits with Garden City when it retrofitted the building in 2010 with the equipment that residents say has produced the excessive noise.

Readings taken last summer by Lally Acoustical Consulting, an audiology consultant for the Village of Mineola, indicated daytime noise levels at the Verizon facility’s eastern property line – which abuts backyards on Mineola’s 13th Avenue – ranging from 74 decibels to 84 decibels from the diesel generator and daytime and nighttime noise levels at or exceeding 60 decibels.

Those results are consistent with readings conducted by engineering consultant John Donovan for the plaintiffs, and acoustical consultants retained by Verizon and Garden City, according to Sullivan.

The readings were taken last summer when Village of Mineola officials had sought to resolve the residents’ issues with Verizon officials and representatives of the Village of Garden City.

The Lally report cites World Health Organization guidelines that state that continuous noise levels should not exceed 45 decibels to avoid moderately annoying people during nighttime hours, and should not exceed 50 decibels during daytime hours.

Garden City attorney Gary Fishberg has argued that the Verizon facility has always produced the same level of noise, Sullivan said. He said Fishberg also maintains that Garden City has no enforceable noise level codes, and thus has no responsibility to compel Verizon to mitigate the noise its facility is emitting.

Sullivan said he plans to apply Town of Hempstead noise codes in the discovery phase of the case.

Garden City officials have declined comment on the neighbors’ complaints about the Verizon facility since the court case was filed.

Repeated attempts to reach Verizon were unavailing. Telephone calls to one of the attorneys representing the corporation in the case were not returned.

E-mail: rtedesco@theislandnow.com

 

Share this Article