CLEANING UP PLUME
Oil Giant Holds Info Session On Newtown Creek Efforts
story and photo by Sam Goldman
ExxonMobil’s continuing cleanup of Newtown Creek was the focus of a public information session Thursday, Nov. 15 at St. Stanislaus Kostka in Greenpoint.
The session was required by the state Department of Environmental Conservation, as the oil company seeks a permit to continue to spill treated water into the creek.
The water comes up as a result of the dual-pump systems being used to remove the 30 millions gallons of petroleum that have seeped underground as a result of oil refining activities in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
How it works
The oil being removed from Newtown Creek floats on top of an aquifer underneath the neighborhood.
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The dual pump wells are 18 inches in diameter and run about 75 feet deep. One pump begins to suck water out of the aquifer, creating a cone of depression that sucks the oil down toward the second pump, which removes the oil into holding tanks that are picked up on a regular basis.
This process can pump oil out of the ground faster than a single pump.
The water goes through a treatment process and eventually ends up in Newtown Creek; the permit (for a State Pollutant Discharge Elimination System) will allow ExxonMobil to continue dumping the water into the creek.
According to Barry Wood, a consultant for the oil giant, the company was working under what he referred to as a “SPDES equivalency” granted by the state Department of Environmental Conservation that allowed them to bypass the permit process.
Since the company began to clean up the oil spill, 34 wells have been built to remove the oil; some were dual-pump wells while others were single-pump wells. Of those, 11 are still in operation, as most of the others have run dry.
But 10 new wells—all of the dual-pump variety—will be operation by the end of 2008. Each well will come with a nearby monitoring station, and local contractors will visit each station on a daily basis to ensure that the system is working.
In addition, Wood stated that over 200 “monitoring wells” have been placed throughout the area of the oil spill, which stretches roughly from the creek to Morgan Avenue between Greenpoint and Meeker avenues.
These tiny wells contain monitoring equipment, sending information daily to ExxonMobil’s cleanup command center at 400 Kingsland Ave.
A presentation
Government Relations Manager Donald Clarke, Project Manager Steve Trifiletti and Roux Associates Consultant Drew Baris delivered an half-hour PowerPoint presentation on the permit.
“There are over 100 folks engaged in the cleanup program,” Clarke said, adding that “if there is a better way, a better technology, a better methodology, we will adopt that better process.”
Baris explained the water pumped from the ground gathers to an “equalization tank,” or holding tank. They then aerate the water to stratify volatile organic compounds and annually occurring metals, then move the water through filters that separate the metals from the water. Then water next go through “air strippers,” which remove the organic compounds from the water using a crosscurrent of air.
The treated water finally is discharged into the creek at two spots—one by ExxonMobil’s former oil factory below Greenpoint Avenue, and one near Meeker Avenue.
Trfilietti noted that the state DEC oversees the company’s work; the operation generated monthly, quarterly and annual reports, detailing the compounds removed from the water to ensure that the water is within DEC limits.
He added that, since the DEC has found that the operation has made the limits more stringent.
End in sight?
When asked when cleanup would be complete, Wood refused to give an end date, calling the cleanup “a very complex issue.
“ExxonMobil is committed to completing the cleanup, whatever the length of time,” he added.
The cleanup is expected to take 20 years at a minimum, and will run ExxonMobil $15 million per year.
So far, over 9.5 million gallons of oil have been removed from the area.
Residents remain skeptical
The first resident to go up to speak during the question and answer period had one thing to say: “I don’t trust you.” He would later explain further:
“You don’t have a timetable for this cleanup. This is all bull.
It’s propaganda in my eyes.”
“We, the community, did not make this mess,” the man, who claimed to live on nearby Hausman Street, continued. “You did. Now you’re throwing us all these high-tech things here, telling us how you’re going to do it? You know what? I wish you all the luck in the world, because I ain’t going nowhere.”
One woman stated that “it’s really hard for me to read the proposal if I don’t have someone who is an expert to help me out with this. It’s almost impossible.” She noted that what may seem state-of-the-art to some may not be to others.
Clarke responded that the state and federal government had reviewed the methodology and had deemed the process “the most efficient technology available now.”
One resident asked about the release of noxious gases from the water treatment process. Baris noted that a special carbon-based process will clean the air before it is released into the atmosphere.
Queens Courier - Read original...
A quicker and more complete cleanup is needed at Newtown Creek, a spokesperson from the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) told the City Council.
“A more comprehensive approach that includes investigation and remediation of dissolved petroleum constituents and soil contamination is needed, as well as expediting the recovery of the liquid petroleum,” testified Suzanne Mattei, the DEC’s Regional Director for New York State, on Monday, November 26.
However, Mattei also reported that air quality around the site, the largest spill in U.S. history, has been deemed clear in a recent round of testing. Between 2006 and 2007, the DEC in conjunction with the state Department of Health (DOH) tested 52 homes in Greenpoint and found no evidence of “vapor intrusion.”
“The oil spill, of course, still needs to be cleaned up. There is evidence that the oil has seeped into Newtown Creek. Also, while the fact that 52 homes did not show oil spill vapor intrusion is encouraging, the spill still poses a continuing concern that must be addressed,” Mattei told councilmembers during the hearing on cleanup progress at the site.
Following the meeting, Councilmember Eric Gioia blasted ExxonMobil for skipping the hearing. Since 1990, the oil giant has removed nine million gallons of an estimated 17 million dumped in the 3.5-mile waterway; however ExxonMobil has estimated that it needs another 25 years to fully cleanup the site and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimated in September that original amount could have been as much as 30 million gallons.
"To not appear, to refuse to show their face and answer questions, further proves that theirs is a strategy of obstruction and delay. ExxonMobil continues to do the bare minimum, and to try as hard as it can to escape public scrutiny. They are one of the most profitable companies in the world, raking in billions each year, and yet getting them to speed up the cleanup process - which currently has no deadline - has been like pulling teeth,” Gioia said.
However, an ExxonMobil spokesperson said that the oil company sent information packets to all of the city councilmembers about their recent efforts.
“Due to pending litigation, of which several of the councilmembers are plaintiffs, we didn’t feel that it was appropriate to be present at the hearing,” said Barry Woods from ExxonMobil.
“That covered all of the activities that were underway here,” Woods said, referring to the info packets.
Woods said the oil company hopes that 10 new recovery wells, which are being dug near the spill’s center in Greenpoint, will double the daily recovery rate of oil from the site.
“We anticipate by the end of 2008 when these new wells will be fully operational that the recovery rate will range between 2,000 and 2,500 gallons per day as a rough estimate,” Woods said.
Queens Chronicle - Read original...
Frustrated by the lack of progress in cleaning up Newtown Creek, Queens City Council members blasted oil giant ExxonMobil this week for “dragging its feet” in remediating the polluted waterway, and called on the state to beef up its oversight.
“ExxonMobil continues to do the bare minimum, and to try as hard as it can to escape public scrutiny,” said Councilman Eric Gioia (D-Sunnyside) on Monday following a council hearing on the remediation effort. ExxonMobil was invited to testify, but did not send a representative.
“They are one of the most profitable companies in the world, raking in billions each year,” Gioia continued, “yet getting them to speed up the cleanup process ... has been like pulling teeth.”
Since taking legal responsibility for cleaning the creek in 1990, ExxonMobil has recovered roughly 9.5. million gallons of oil. But, with anywhere from 17 million to 30 million gallons of oil originally spilled, many experts say remediation could take more than two decades at the current rate.
According to state officials, the spill was likely caused by a series of leaks that formed more than 50 years ago, when Standard Oil — the defunct parent company of ExxonMobil — operated a large refinery along the creek bank. For reasons that remain unclear, however, the spill was not actually discovered until 1978 when a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter spotted the plume.
Estimated to be six times the size of the catastrophic Exxon Valdez spill in 1989, the Standard Oil spill has rendered Newtown Creek one of the nation’s most polluted waterways, state officials said. And while Greenpoint residents have born the brunt of the spill, Long Island City, West Maspeth and Sunnyside have also been affected.
“People who live and work near the creek can’t enjoy it,” said Congresswoman Nydia Velasquez (D-Brooklyn-Queens), who believes the spill poses serious health risks to nearby communities. “They have to live in constant fear of what lies beneath.”
Yet despite calls for more urgency on the matter, state officials say they lack the authority to force ExxonMobil to move faster on the project. Council Speaker Christine Quinn (D-Manhattan) has called the state’s progress “unsatisfactory,” particularly given the city’s own lack of oversight.
In 1990, ExxonMobil entered into two consent orders with the state Department of Environmental Conservation, agreeing to install a pumping system that would help remove petroleum and treat groundwater. The oil giant also agreed to take legal responsibility for the cleanup along with two other large firms, BP and Chevron, both formerly owned by Standard Oil.
But the agreement did not include any timeline for the project — thereby allowing ExxonMobil to lag in its work, critics say. “It seems like they (the oil company) got a pretty good deal with that consent order,” said Councilman James Gennaro (D-Fresh Meadow), who chairs the council’s Environmental Committee, “a deal that is maybe a little too favorable to the oil company.”
In an effort to tighten the legal requirements, several advocacy groups — including Westchester-based Riverkeeper — filed suit against ExxonMobil earlier this year.
In February, the oil giant responded by suspending most of its petroleum pumping operations, its lawyers claiming that they needed time to redress advocates’ claims that their pumps didn’t work properly. For months afterward, oil removal continued but at a dramatically reduced rate.
Hoping to compel ExxonMobil to resume cleanup at its healthier former clip, State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo filed yet another lawsuit in September, eventually prompting the company to resume pumping operations.
Now, state environmental officials are counting on the pending lawsuit to lend muscle to their oversight powers, as well. “The suit is to give us more firepower in our legal effort,” said Suzanne Mattei, New York City’s regional director for the DEC.
When asked for comment, ExxonMobil officials said the firm has done everything it can to clean the creek quickly. In addition to maintaining 11 recovery wells and 200 monitoring wells, the company has vowed to apply for state permits that would allow it to build 10 new recovery wells by fall 2008 and increase its oversight duties.
“We’ve deployed significant human and financial resources toward the project, and significant progress has been made to date,” said Barry Wood, a company spokesman. “ExxonMobil is committed. ... We’ll be here until job is done and done right.”
But Basil Seggos, chief investigator for Riverkeeper, believes that bolstering government oversight is the only way to ensure better progress. “To be honest, Exxon has not been aggressive enough in pursuing its investigations or its work,” he said. “Hopefully, the state will be able to hold its feet to the fire more.”
Times Ledger - Read original...
Elected officials at the federal and city level recommended subpoenaing ExxonMobil for testimony Monday after the oil giant failed to show up for a City Council hearing on the massive Newtown Creek oil spill.
Council members said they were angry that Exxon representatives were not present.
"ExxonMobil's utter and complete disregard for the community is appalling," Councilman Eric Gioia (D-Sunnyside) said. "To not appear, to refuse to show their face and answer questions, further proves that theirs is a strategy of obstruction and delay."
But Exxon spokesman Barry Wood said neither BP nor Chevron, both of which also have minor roles in the cleanup, attended the hearing.
"We were invited and we trust that the other remediating parties were invited as well," he said. "But due to litigation that is underway in which some City Council members are plaintiffs, we thought it would be inappropriate to attend."
Wood said Exxon recently provided updated information about its recovery project to the Council.
A spokeswoman for Gennaro's office said Exxon was the only oil company invited to the hearing.
U.S. Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D-Ridgewood) and City Councilman David Yassky (D-Brooklyn) both said they would support issuing a subpoena to Exxon to force the company to testify before the Council. Speaker Christine Quinn (D-Manhattan) said the legislative body has never subpoenaed a private company, but she would look into whether the council Could force the petroleum giant to testify.
The spill, which was discovered by a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter patrol in 1978, is believed to have started anywhere from 50 to 100 years ago along the bank of the creek, where Standard Oil once operated a massive oil refinery.
Previous studies by the Tarrytown-based environmental advocacy group Riverkeeper and the DEC estimated that 17 million gallons of oil had seeped into the waterway.
But a recent study by the federal Environmental Protection Agency found that the spill may be as large as 30 million gallons.
Standard Oil's descendent, ExxonMobil, entered into two consent orders in 1990 with the DEC to clean up the waterway. City Council members questioned the DEC at Monday's hearing whether the current orders were effective.
"No agency at the end of the day has the buck stopping with them," Quinn said. "We are here in 2007 with unanswered questions. It really raises questions about whether the right questions have been raised about impacts on the area near Newtown Creek."
Councilman James Gennaro (D-Fresh Meadows), who chairs the Environmental Committee holding the hearing, said he did not think that the DEC's consent orders with Exxon were "tough enough to get the job done." DEC representatives would not comment on Gennaro's request to grade Exxon's performance in the cleanup of the creek, but estimated the complete remediation of the waterway could take at least 20 years.
Exxon recently announced it would apply for a State Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit that would limit the amount of water and pollutants that can be discharged during the company's recovery effort as well as setting monitoring and reporting requirements. The move followed a lawsuit filed earlier this year by Riverkeeper, which accused Exxon of dumping untreated water back into the creek without proper permits.
Velazquez said the EPA's study, which was released in September, did not study enough homes near the creek to determine whether vapor intrusion had affected residents and recommended that the Council conduct its own study of the spill.
She said Exxon could easily afford the newest technology to clean the waterway at a quicker rate.
"Few things frustrate me more than an oil company not willing to commit the resources to fix the mess they made," she said. "The families in this area cannot enjoy their waterfront and must worry about what lies beneath. The people of this community are tired of promises that are not being kept. Exxon claims to be a good corporate citizen, but they choose to duck this forum. Their absence speaks volumes."
