Not the best, but the City has worse.
What Long Island is, is the site of some of the oldest heavy industry, built for the world wars.
Many those planes and tanks you see in the documentaries, were often built right here.
And they set it up quickly, with very little regulation. People have been straight-up dumping toxic sludge for decades. Since Long Island gets almost all its water from local aquifers, there you have it.
Traditionally, this kind of thing happens to disadvantaged communities, without much clout, but Long Island has a lot of billionaires (old-money billionaires). They get cancer, as well.
But they are also absolutely aghast at the prospect of government intervention, and hate regulations. Add a bit of mob spice, and you have a situation, where no one wants to raise a stink.
We do have some damn good cancer hospitals, though. Very few of the people I have seen fight cancer have actually died.