$16M Provided to Restore Newtown Creek
by Andres Soto
The Newtown Creek is a 3.5-mile long estuary that forms part of the border between Brooklyn and Queens. The creek is crossed by the Pulaski Bridge, Greenpoint Avenue Bridge, and the Kosciuszko Bridge. During the second half of the 19th century the creek became a major industrial waterway and before 1950, bulk-oil storage facilities nearby were spilling petroleum.
An estimated 30 million US gallons of spilled oil, raw sewage from New York City’s sewer system and other accumulation from a total 1,491 sites were dumped. The creek was declared a federal Superfund site in 2010 which the NY Daily News says is “a designation that compels companies responsible for polluting the site to pay to clean it up.”
After many years of negligence Newtown Creek is getting some love. One of the many companies held responsible for polluting the Creek and admitting to dumping hazardous materials, Getty Petroleum Marketing Inc and Getty Terminals Corp., has agreed to pay $16,000,000 to help start the cleanup. This amount is the result of an agreement between Getty and the federal government as part of their 2011 Bankruptcy process.
Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement, “For more than a century, irresponsible industrial activities turned Newtown Creek into a tributary of toxic waste.” Today’s settlement ensures that Getty takes responsibility for its contribution to that sad legacy, and pays a fair share of clean-up costs at the site.”
The Environmental Protection Agency is currently taking samples from the creek in preparation for its $500 million cleanup that will take around a decade to complete. Hopefully by then more dolphins will appear in the water.
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