Totten panel slams plan for more mercury testing

By Kathianne Boniello

Preliminary plans for a second round of mercury testing at Fort Totten in Bayside were criticized by the Coast Guard Restoration Advisory Board at its meeting last Wednesday as inadequate to determine the full extent of the contamination.

While spokesmen for the Army and the state Department of Environmental Conservation agreed to consider increasing the sampling, they defended the sampling recommended in the plans as sufficient.

The Army Corps of Engineers