State Comptroller Puts Halt To Cleanup Of Brooklyn Oil Spill
May 15, 2006 Brooklyn News
Nearly 30 years after a giant oil spill in Brooklyn, environmental officials are poised to negotiate a cleanup agreement with ExxonMobil, but the state comptroller is asking them to hold off.
The spill in Greenpoint's Newton Creek is more than 50 percent larger than the Exxon Valdez catastrophe in Alaska, and remains the largest urban oil spill in American history.
Oil continues to seep into the creek to this day, polluting it as well as soil, groundwater and the East River.
State Comptroller Alan Hevesi said Monday he wants the full extent of damages determined before a cleanup deal is agreed upon.
"To this moment, we have no knowledge that any tests have been done that deal with the health risks and the contamination risks along this oil spill," said Hevesi.
Hevesi's plan calls for the New York Environmental Protection and Spill Compensation Fund, known as the Oil Spill Fund, to foot the bill for the studies.