Civic association sues city over landfill

Earthjustice, a nonprofit environmental law firm, filed a lawsuit Tuesday in federal district court in Manhattan, on behalf of the Northern Great Kills Civic Association, asking that the city clean up a former toxic waste dump at Brookfield, in the Great Kills section of Staten Island. The 272-acre landfill, designed for municipal solid waste, was used illegally for toxic industrial waste between 1974 and 1980 and was one of five city landfills involved in a 1982 federal investigation of illegal dumping. The city set aside $600 million for the cleanup of the five landfills in 1990, but the lawsuit says the cleanup has not yet begun at the Brookfield site.