Earth Protect Blog

Exxon Mobil Corp. has agreed to pay $25 million to resolve complaints over its handling of a huge underground oil spill in New York City.

The settlement with Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and a related agreement with the environmental group Riverkeeper will settle years of litigation over the toxic legacy of the refineries that once lined the Brooklyn waterfront.
It will also hasten a decades-long cleanup of the neighborhood that now sits above the oil plume, Cuomo vowed Wednesday.

For the first time, the company will be held to deadlines for cleaning up portions of the spill, said Cuomo, New York's governor-elect. Exxon Mobil will also be required to clean contaminated soil and ensure that fumes from the spill are not entering people's homes.
"They have to do more, better, faster," Cuomo said.
An estimated 17 million gallons of petroleum once lay beneath land that was a major production center for Standard Oil, and later was the home of refineries and fuel distribution terminals for several energy companies.

These days, the neighborhood, in the borough's Greenpoint section, is a mix of light industry and residential homes. The oil sits on top of the water table dozens of feet underground. Exxon believes it was spilled bit by bit over a century in which regulation of refineries was lighter than it is now, and spills and leaks were common.

Exxon first recognized in 1978 that the land it owned in Greenpoint was contaminated and since 1990 it has been extracting oil from the ground using a network of wells. To date, more than 11 million gallons have been pumped out, but the pace of the cleanup has frustrated neighborhood residents.

Today, oil still seeps into Newtown Creek, which separates Brooklyn from Queens. Some people living above the plume had complained about an oily smell in their basements after periods of heavy rain.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/17/exxon-mobil-to-pay-25m-in_n_785029.html