 In 1936 the Grumman Corporation was founded and produced aircraft at the site, before the Navy established the Naval Weapons Industrial Reserve Plant, Bethpage there in 1941.The site was a 'storage facility' and since 1976 permitted under the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) to both the Navy and Northrop Grumman as responsible parties.In 1986, the first of 2 known plumes of contamination was discovered, a shallow one; in 2009 a larger, deeper plume was found under what became the Bethpage Community Park.