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Inside the walls and barbed wire fence that largely hides the nondescript facility beside Newtown Creek in Brooklyn, a handful of trailers sit in a cluster surrounded by smaller buildings that belong to Exxon Mobil.
It is not much to look at, but Exxon Mobil officials say the operation is slowly eliminating the contamination that has been deep underground in the Greenpoint neighborhood for decades. The operation, and the contamination, stem from an oil spill that occurred more than half a century ago and has been described as more than twice as large as the Exxon Valdez disaster, which released 11 million gallons of crude oil off the Alaskan coast.
The Brooklyn spill, which resulted from an industrial explosion in 1950, released an estimated 17 million gallons of oil and oil products, polluted the soil, left traces of toxic chemicals in Newtown Creek, led to years of community and environmental outcry and became the basis of several continuing lawsuits.
Nearly eight million gallons remain beneath the Exxon Mobil property and nearby properties along Kingsland Avenue, though the contamination cannot be seen or smelled. How long it will take to get rid of the remaining material is unclear. “We’ll be here until the job is done and done right,” said Barry Wood, a spokesman for Exxon Mobil.
Ten million gallons of toxic gunk trapped in the Brooklyn aquifer is starting to creep toward the surface. How scary is that?
By Daphne Eviatar
Teens take to streets with pollution detectors in NYC, elsewhere
By COLLEEN LONG
Associated Press Writer
May 30, 2007
NEW YORK --
The residents of Brooklyn's Sunset Park neighborhood often wonder about the quality of the air as they gaze at the power plants, the waste-transfer station and the traffic-clogged expressway that surround their homes.
The answer to their question could rest with a group of teenagers walking the streets of the neighborhood this summer.
Volunteers from a Hispanic community organization are taking to the streets with handheld pollution detectors to determine the quality of the air. Similar efforts are happening in three other cities around the country, with the goal of developing a clearer picture of the pollution that plagues the nation's urban areas.
"In order for us to really change things, we need to know what's there, on a daily basis," said Frank Torres, director of youth leadership for New York-based UPROSE. "We want to educate to the community, put the power in their hands so they can change their surroundings."
Amid all the recent clean-air initiatives being launched around the country is a sometimes-overlooked fact: The worst pollution exists in poor and minority neighborhoods.
More than 90 percent of Hispanics and 86 percent of blacks live in urban settings, which are typically at higher risk for air pollution, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Hispanics are more than twice as likely than non-Hispanics to live in places that fall short of EPA standards for airborne particle matter.