It would cost the state parks department $7 million to clean up asbestos and lead paint at 25 former Kings Park Psychiatric Center buildings now part of Nissequogue River State Park in Kings Park, NY and then demolish 19 of the structures, a consultant's report says.

The Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation had hoped to use the estimate prepared by LiRo Engineers Inc. of Syosset to calculate the cost of cleaning up the 84 buildings on the remaining hospital property. It was transferred to the department in the waning days of the Pataki administration at the behest of then-parks commissioner Bernadette Castro. But parks officials are now saying it will probably be impossible to do that.

Andy Beers, the department's executive deputy commissioner, said there had been no estimate of what the remediation costs for the initial 153-acre park property would be.

He said the department has not determined yet which buildings would be demolished and if the number is less than 19, the $7 million cost would drop. He added that the report does not cover the cost of adapting the buildings that are not demolished for reuse.

As for the 330 acres, Beers said, "I don't think you can extrapolate from this data to try to estimate a cleanup cost for the entire property. The buildings on the 330 acres that were transferred in December are larger than the buildings that were the subject of this study."

In addition, he said there are clean-up issues on the new property that are not a factor in the original park section such as groundwater contamination around the power plant and buried demolition debris.

Beers said the department will try to get cleanup reports from the developers who had wanted to buy the property but will probably have to arrange for a study with the same kind of detailed building-by-building analysis of the structures on the 330 acres. He said that would take six to nine months after a consultant is hired.

Previous studies suggested remediation of the entire property would cost $50 million to $75 million. And parks commissioner Carol Ash has said she thinks the cost might be even higher. Ash has been weighing whether the department should keep the additional property or give it to another agency to try to sell it for development.

The study examined 25 buildings in the park including 12 residences along with a power station, maintenance garage and greenhouse. Nine of the structures are now occupied. All but two -- a residence and a garage -- were found to have asbestos. The carcogenic fiber was spread throughout the building interiors because the pipe insulation containing has broken up. All had lead paint, which the study said could be removed at the same time as the asbestos by workers wearing protective equipment. It estimated that it would take 21,064 man-hours to complete the removal at a cost of slightly more than $1.5 million with an additional 15 to 20 percent for monitoring and air testing.

The unoccupied buildings have been empty for more than 10 years and they have water damage, peeling paint and bird droppings. There are also transformer rooms believed to contain hazardous PCB fluids.

Smithtown Supervisor Patrick Vecchio said he was frustrated that it has taken seven years since the park opened to get an estimate on the cost of cleaning up the buildings and there still is no money available to do the work. "It's a long time," Vecchio said. "And the estimate seems awfully low to me."

The state transferred 153 of the 520 acres of the property to parks to create Nissequogue River State Park in 2000. Efforts to sell the rest to developers have foundered, so the land was transferred from the Office of Mental Health to parks in the last days of the Pataki administration last year.