Newtown Creek Advocates Score Another Victory Against Pollution

Newtown Creek is New York City’s most polluted waterway

September 22, 2005- Queens Chronicle

Newtown Creek advocates won another victory in the battle against pollution last Thursday, when Congress passed legislation that would require an extensive study of the polluted waterway.
The legislation, which passed the House of Representatives by a unanimous vote, would require the Coast Guard to conduct a study [for] one year to determine the public health risks of pollution from an oil spill in the creek “Thousands of homes and businesses are affected by this terrible oil spill,” said Congressman Anthony Weiner, who sponsored the bill. “While the oil companies lag in their cleanup responsibilities, the public has the right to know what effects this oil spill is having on our local environment.”
The legislation is part of the Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Act of 2005, which includes a host of other provisions from authorization of funding related to Hurricane Katrina to an icebreaker operation and maintenance plan.
The act, designated H.R. 889, is widely expected to be passed by the Senate and signed into law by President Bush.
Newtown Creek is New York City’s most polluted waterway. More than 50 years ago, a 17-million-gallon oil spill seeped below 55 acres of residential, commercial and industrial property in the area. The spill affects the communities of Maspeth, Bushwick, Greenpoint and Long Island City. These areas have the highest asthma, emphysema and bronchitis rates in the city.
A joint study by Riverkeeper, an environmental watchdog group, and Columbia-Lamont Dougherty Earth Laboratories, found that Newtown Creek has the highest concentrations of carbon based gases linked to ozone depletion in New York Harbor.
Since last July, Riverkeeper has been tied up in litigation with ExxonMobil in relation to the oil spill. Chevron Texaco and BP Amoco have also been served with notices of intent to sue, but there is less information suggesting that they’re responsible. Advocates are hoping the Coast Guard’s study will be helpful in their case and ensure that a thorough cleanup of the waterway is completed.
“This bill gives the Coast Guard the resources it needs to fully analyze the environmental effects of the massive Greenpoint oil spill,” said Alex Matthiessen, Riverkeeper’s executive director. “The people of Brooklyn and Queens have waited two decades for this kind of attention from the federal government.”
The organization also blames the state for not doing enough to mitigate the damage done to the environment and the public’s health, after Exxon backed away. “This also puts federal scrutiny on what the state has done,” said Basil Seggos, Riverkeeper chief investigator. “In our estimation the state dropped the ball.”
City officials first learned of the oil spill in 1950, when an underground explosion in Greenpoint shot 25 manhole covers into the air and shattered windowpanes on more than 500 buildings. It turned out that gasoline had seeped into a sewer and ignited.
It took almost 30 more years for the problem to be rediscovered. It was a Coast Guard pilot on a routine patrol who noticed the oil slick on Newtown Creek in 1978. Further investigation revealed the slick was part of a spill that originated from tanks at an Exxon facility. According to Riverkeeper, because ExxonMobil ignored the spill, it has spread. It is now six times larger than the infamous Exxon Valdez spill was in Alaska.
It was not until 1990 that ExxonMobil signed a consent order from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to clean up the mess.
But Riverkeeper has maintained that the order was inadequate since no provisions were made for cleaning the contaminated soil beneath the water’s surface and ExxonMobil was not required to pay penalties or compensate the community. An estimated 230 homes and 80 businesses are still thought to be affected by contaminated soil.
“They’re doing the bare minimum,” Seggos said. “They can do a hell of a lot more.”
In addition to the oil spill, Empire Transit Mix, a concrete manufacturer based in Brooklyn, pleaded guilty in federal court in May to illegally dumping concrete slurry into the creek. Riverkeeper also sued Maspeth Concrete Loading for similarly dumping concrete, which changes the pH balance of water and kills fish.
Riverkeeper continues to patrol the creek either in a helicopter or by boat every few weeks, and sometimes on consecutive days. Even now, with the fate of the creek highly publicized—Robert Kennedy Jr. is the organization’s chief attorney—companies still routinely dump hazardous materials