skip to main |
skip to sidebar
From the
Daily News:
A federal judge is not convinced that the methane gas leaking from waste oil underneath a Queens building is a ticking time bomb ready to explode.
Brooklyn Judge Pamela Chen rejected a demand by Phoenix Beverage — which operates a large warehouse in Long Island City — to order Exxon Mobil to launch an immediate cleanup.
“There's not enough evidence that there is an imminent threat of an explosion,” Chen said Wednesday. “I, of course, hope it does not come to pass.”
...Chen sided with the Exxon Mobil lawyers who argued that the situation is being monitored and the risk of an explosion is merely speculation. Both sides have been litigating the case for years and Chen will ultimately have to decide who is responsible for cleaning up the boatloads of underground waste oil.
From the
Daily News:
Lawyers for a Queens beverage company are sounding the alarm that there’s an imminent threat of an explosion at its Long Island City warehouse due to methane gas leaking from waste oil at the adjacent property, the Daily News has learned.
They’re seeking an injunction in Brooklyn Federal Court ordering Exxon Mobil to deal with the longstanding problem at the contaminated site where recent tests show methane gas readings are 10 times the acceptable level of risk, according to court papers.
Phoenix Beverages filed suit in 2012 alleging that the building next door, Quanta Resources Corp., at 37-80 Review Ave., was used as a waste-oil facility from 1970 to 1981, and fumes are migrating from underground oil.
From
Forest Hills Patch:
Assemblyman Rory Lancman, D-Hillcrest, stood in front of a Rego Park Mobil station on Tuesday to decry the influx of corporate money that has saturated campaigns across the country.
“Ordinary Americans are being fleeced and cheated out of their right to participate in our democracy on an equal basis,” Lancman said. “They are priced out of the political process by the ability of corporations to make these enormous political contributions.”
The candidate pointed to a gas station marquee behind his podium, indicating gas as expensive as $4.50 per gallon, and said he believed it was unconscionable that the country’s most profitable industry was also getting the most aggressive tax subsidies.
Lancman, when asked, pledged not to accept donations from “Big Oil,” Wall Street or other moneyed interests, adding that caveat that he didn’t believe he’d have the opportunity to reject those funds, because they likely wouldn’t be forthcoming.
“I would not accept money from the Exxon-Mobil’s of the world, I don’t know why they’d be interested in giving me money, and I certainly wouldn’t be interested in taking it,” he said.
From
Courier-Life:
The Environmental Protection Agency announced it could take 16 years to fully clean Newtown Creek, though local businesses and property owners fear that the effects of the agency’s Superfund recommendation could be felt immediately.
In September, the EPA made a recommendation to add the Newtown Creek to the federal Superfund site after several months of sampling. The EPA has increasingly scrutinized Netwon Creek, along with the Gowanus Canal with the goal of long-term remediation, though the cleanup of the sites could escalate into tens of million of dollars.
At two separate meetings in North Brooklyn hosted by the Newtown Creek Alliance and the Newtown Monitoring Committee, Williamsburg residents took the opportunity to ask EPA officials about the effects of environmental remediation in North Brooklyn, after Walter Mugdon, director of the EPA’s Division of Environmental Planning, gave a detailed presentation about the Superfund process.
“Our experience now is if a site is declared a Superfund site, property values may drop but they will quickly rebound when people realize it is going to get cleaned up,” said Mugdon, at an NCA meeting at St. Cecilia’s Church Auditorium. “Do people want to have a business near a waterway that is clean or dirty? Chances are they are going to say they want a cleaner one.”
Mugdan said that the EPA has been reaching out to five companies — ExxonMobil, Chevron, Phelps Dodge, BP-Amico, and National Grid — which could be potentially responsible parties for contamination and significant financial contributors toward its cleanup, as well as smaller mom and pop businesses located on the Creek which may share some liability.From
Courier-Life:
The United States Navy and the City of New York could be the latest entities footing the bill for the clean-up of the fetid Gowanus Canal, this paper has learned.
The Environmental Protection Agency sent out notices to the two last week, informing them that they could be potentially responsible for the paying for the polluted waterway’s cleansing, should it be designated a Superfund site.
EPA spokesperson Elizabeth Totman said the Navy’s connection to the canal comes by way of facilities it formerly owned and/or operated adjacent to or near the Gowanus Canal and for facilities where the Navy directed and oversaw government contractors which owned and/or operated facilities adjacent to the canal. The U.S. Department of the Navy and contractors’ facilities include, but are not limited to, Navy piers at 33rd and 37th Streets; Naval Supply Depot at 850 3rd Avenue; Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corp., Ltd. yards at 19th and 27th Street; Sullivan Dry Dock at the 23rd Street Yard; Todd Shipyards at Pier A, Tebo Plant at 23rd Street, and at the Erie Basin, Totman noted.
The city’s responsibility comes through previous/current ownership of an asphalt plant, incinerator, a pumping station, storage yard, and Department of Transportation garage. Taken collectively, the uses may have added to fouling the canal, considered one of the most polluted waterway’s in the nation.
From
NY1:
Exxon Mobil was found liable Monday for polluting the city's ground water.
A jury awarded the city $105 million in its suit against the oil company.
The city sued Exxon Mobil for the cost of removing a gasoline additive from drinking wells in Jamaica, Queens.
It argued the company ignored warnings not to use the additive in areas where groundwater is used for drinking.
Exxon Mobil released a statement after the verdict saying they were not the source of the contamination, and they will weigh their legal options.
