Exxon Suspends Part of Oil Cleanup System in Brooklyn
NEW YORK (AP) -- Environmental groups and government officials have been pressuring Exxon Mobil for a year to do more to clean up a vast underground oil spill in Brooklyn.
Instead, the company has decided to do less -- for now.
On Friday the energy giant said it had shut down a key part of a pumping system that is slowly extracting millions of gallons of petroleum from the borough's water table.
The company said the move was in response to a pair of planned lawsuits by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and the environmental group Riverkeeper.
Both suits, which are in the process of being filed, accuse Exxon of taking too long to clean up oil spilled decades ago from now-defunct refineries in Brooklyn's Greenpoint section.
The litigation also takes aim at part of the pumping system that has been discharging water into Newtown Creek, a waterway separating Brooklyn from Queens. Environmentalists said the water was being insufficiently treated for pollutants.
Exxon's response, effective Friday, was to suspend those discharges -- a move that stopped any related creek pollution. The change, though, will also hobble a system that had drawn the spilled oil into extraction wells where it could be siphoned away.
Oil will continue to be pumped from the ground, but most likely not as quickly.
"It will impact the pace of the recovery,'' acknowledged Exxon spokeswoman Prem Nair.
She added, however, that the measure was temporary, and was meant to address allegations that the company hadn't received proper regulatory approval for the water discharges.
"Until that concern is resolved, it just seems to be the appropriate thing to do,'' she said.
Environmental groups and government officials expressed outrage.
"Though the system is outdated, and being operated in violation of federal law, it is better than no system at all,'' said Riverkeeper investigator Basil Seggos. "Simply shutting the system down virtually guarantees that the environment and human health will be put at risk.''
City Councilman Eric Gioia, one of the plaintiffs in Riverkeeper's planned suit, called Exxon's decision "frustrating.''
"We want them to do more, not less,'' he said.
Exxon began cleaning up an estimated 17 million gallons of spilled oil in 1979 after the Coast Guard noticed a stream of it escaping into the creek. Today, residents living above the underground plume complain about occasional bad-smelling vapors.
An estimated 7 million to 8 million gallons of oil remain.
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