The story is a couple of decades old and this Brooklyn Skyline article is a couple of months old but we found some interesting details in local paper’s account of the Newtown Creek oil spill of 1978. The issue of environmental and health impact on the surrounding Greenpoint neighborhood periodically surfaces here and elsewhere (most recently when Councilmembers David Yassky and Eric Gioia along with Marty Markowitz joined the lawsuit against ExxonMobil), for residents is, presumably, a more persistent worry. We hadn’t realized the scale of the spill–17 million gallons under 55 acres of land as compared to 10.8 million gallons that were spilled by the Exxon Valdez–nor the fact that as recently as 2002 oil was found gushing into the Newtown Creek. Yassky, who we’re still feeling a little icy towards since he turned his back on 184 Kent, had this to say recently: “All the evidence suggests that these three oil companies are co-conspirators to this environmental crime — one of the largest environmental crimes in world history.”
Brooklyn’s Secret Spill [Brooklyn Skyline]