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State lax on cleaning up toxic sites left by ExxonMobil, report claims
ALBANY — Thousands of contaminated sites left by oil giant ExxonMobil and its predecessor companies have not been cleaned up because of lax action by state regulators, a new report claims.
The report from the New York Public Interest Research Group found that more than 3,500 ExxonMobil gas stations around the state and dozens of larger terminal and storage facilities have not been adequately cleaned up because the state has not done enough to press the company to do so.
One of the most notorious sites is the former Standard Oil Company facility along the Newtown Creek in Brooklyn which, dating back to the mid 1800s, has spilled an estimated 30 million gallons of oil into the creek and surrounding soil, according to the report.
“It’s long past time for analysis and talking, it’s time for action,” said NYPIRG’s Blair Horner.
Contaminants from the sites pose major threats to drinking water sources and endanger the health of neighboring communities, the report stated.
“These things have to get cleaned up, they don’t get better over time,” he added.
The report, which used government data compiled by the research firm Toxics Targeting, focused on ExxonMobil because it is one of the biggest oil companies in the world and appeared to have the most contaminated sites in New York but the state needs to get tough with all polluters, Horner said.
A spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Conservation defended the agency and blasted NYPIRG’s report.
"DEC rapidly responds to and cleans up thousands of contaminated sites every year in every corner of the state to ensure that the environment and public health are protected at all times while aggressively pursuing and holding those accountable for the contamination,” said spokesman Sean Mahar. “Our dedicated field staff and first responders will continue their daily response to spills to keep New Yorkers safe and to suggest otherwise or discredit our staff's commitment, is an irresponsible act by a few headline grabbers to shamefully feed New Yorkers with misinformation."
NYPIRG’s Blair Horner said too much time has passed and now "it's time for action."
(NYPIRG/TWITTER)
ExxonMobil, in a statement, also slammed the report as inaccurate.
“Where historical impacts exist as a result of its own or its predecessors' operations, the company works under the oversight of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to address those impacts,” the company said in a statement. “Remediation of legacy sites is a broad issue for the industry and ExxonMobil is an active participant. ExxonMobil takes its environmental responsibility seriously and is committed to meeting its compliance and remediation obligations.”
Horner and Walter Hang of Toxics Targeting said state law requires polluters clean up contaminated sites but often the process gets bogged down in “endless negotiations” and disputes over how to do it and how much it will cost.
“Many of these problems have been known about for decades and they still haven’t been cleaned up,” Hang said.
Hang said another notorious example of contamination is a 315-mile abandoned oil pipeline built by Standard Oil that stretches from Bayonne, N.J., to Olean, N.Y., Oil releases from the abandoned line have been reported in at least a half-dozen different locations.
Environmental activists say thousands of oil spills remain across state
ALBANY — Thousands of petroleum oil spills at storage facilities, pipelines and places like gas stations across the state have not been properly cleaned up, according to documents from the New York Public Interest Research Group and Toxics Targeting.
Walter Hang, who runs Toxic Targeting, said that there are about 3,500 sites linked to Exxon Mobil that had spills that were not cleaned up to state standards. His report was based of records obtained by Freedom of Information Law requests to the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation.
“Many of these problems have been known about, literally for decades, and they still haven’t been cleaned up,” he said at a Thursday news conference.
Hang and Blair Horner, NYPIRG’s executive director, said they were neither targeting Exxon nor producing a “comprehensive” list of spills but that the company illustrated the broader issue.
“The story is bigger than just Exxon Mobil,” Horner said. “There’s been a lot of debate in Albany about water quality and water infrastructure, issues about climate change. Clearly this shows that that agenda has to be broadened to look at the impacts that fossil fuels have in other areas as well.”
A spokesperson for Exxon Mobil said the company was reviewing the documents, but did not immediately have a comment.
Hang said negotiations between the state and various parties for many of the spills have been unresolved for years.
“In many cases these are just endless negotiations,” he said. “It’s just dragging on.”
A spokesperson for the DEC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Hang said the DEC maintains a database of reported spills, but that the documents obtained via public records laws include important data not found in the regular database.
“What we’re hoping for is by making this information available today to the public is drive the kind of remedial effort that will remove the pollution and meet the applicable standards,” he said.
For more information, go to the Politico New York Pro website by clicking here...
Oil spill data across New York released
ALBANY, N.Y. (NEWS10) – When you’re dealing with petroleum and pipelines, leaks are bound to occur, but environmental firms argue the problem in New York is companies aren’t cleaning them up and they’re seeing little action from the state government to help.
“A huge array of oil terminal problems, gas station problems, the scale of the pollution is simply staggering, it’s just hard to believe,” Walter Hang, president, Toxics Targeting, said.
What started as looking at one pipeline leak in the Southern Tier lead to a statewide analysis for Walter Hang’s environmental firm in Ithaca.
“Contaminated soil and wetlands and it was never cleaned up to the applicable standards.”
That pipeline is not alone, looking at DEC’s own data, Hang found over 3,500 spills from gas stations alone and another ten from large tank storage facilities.
Hang says the spills have been known about, some for decades, but the clean up’s failed to meet state standards.
“I found sites for example from Rochester, New York almost twenty feet of oil that have never been cleaned up to state standards.”
Hang deals with numbers, not patients, but common sense says oil seeping twenty feet deep underground left untreated for years near suburbs is not good.
“What we’re hoping is that these kinds of issues are addressed that the governor and regulators crack the whip on responsible parties, the responsible parties pay for their cleanup, lawmakers hold hearings, the public gets engaged,” Blair Horner, executive director, New York Public Interest Research Group, said.
This work just happened to look at ExxonMobil, the largest oil company in New York state, but advocates say the main focus should be on the state’s department of conservation.
“The companies are dragging their feet, they’re not cleaning it up, they’re studying everything to death and they’re losing notes.”
Hang points to past statements’ from the DEC saying they’d work with companies to comply with state standards but says their own data prove that’s not happening.
“We’re just not making the kind of progress that’s being required,” Hang said.
Check out all of the toxic sites on this interactive map.
DEC sent the following statement Thursday evening:
"DEC rapidly responds to and cleans up thousands of contaminated sites every year in every corner of the state to ensure that the environment and public health are protected at all times while aggressively pursuing and holding those accountable for the contamination. Our dedicated field staff and first responders will continue their daily response to spills to keep New Yorkers safe and to suggest otherwise or discredit our staff’s commitment, is an irresponsible act by a few headline grabbers to shamefully feed New Yorkers with misinformation."
Report Finds Thousands Of Petroleum Spill Sites Left Unchecked - video
A new report from Toxics Targeting and NYPIRG found that oil and gas spills are not being properly cleaned up. The report focused on Exxon Mobil and its corporate predecessors, and looked at incidents dating back more than a century. Researched counted 3,500 spills that did not meet state clean-up standards. And now they want to see the situations properly resolved. With us to explain more are Walter Hang of Toxics Targeting and NYPIRG's Blair Horner.
Regulators: Dominion may begin pipeline expansion
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission granted a wetland, waterbody variances and a notice to proceed to Dominion for its pipeline expansion project on Friday, a move opposed by some environmentalists who claim it will harm wetlands.
In a letter to Sara White, regulatory and certificates analyst at Dominion Transmission, David Swearingen, chief of the Gas Division at FERC, said Dominion could start construction. FERC based its decision on its review of Dominion’s Implementation Plan, filed May 12, 2016, which Swearingen said included information necessary to meet FERC's environmental conditions and pre-construction conditions.
"Dominion Transmission will begin staking limits of disturbance areas at various project locations, and will begin construction as soon as weather allows," said Frank Mack, a spokesman for Dominion Transmission.
Walter Hang, of Toxics Targeting, who opposes the Dominion pipeline expansion, says the stormwater pollution prevention plan Dominion sent to the state and Dryden is "incomplete, inadequate and factually incorrect for regulatory compliance purposes."
The pipeline traverses Tompkins and Chemung, among other New York counties. The company wants to increase capacity and add new compressor stations along the existing pipeline route.
Hang claims Dominion's New Market Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan failed to identify multiple wetlands, waterways and buffer zones within the approved and proposed revised limits of disturbance for the expansion of the Borger Compressor Station facility at 219 Ellis Hollow Creek Road. Hang showed one specific wetland area — wetland 10 — as an example of a location that may be inside a limit of disturbance and at risk of being exposed to contaminants even though maps created for Dominion did not show the two areas converging.
Hang also said the Town of Dryden earlier approved Dominion's Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan and failed to require a Special Use Permit (SUP) for the proposed expansion of the Borger Compressor Station even though earlier facility expansions required a SUP.
"We are fighting tooth and nail to require Dryden to revoke the stormwater pollution prevention plan," Hang said.
Some local officials said they consider Hang's claims to be legitimate and say more reviews should be conducted.
On March 6, Dryden Town Supervisor Jason Leifer wrote a letter to Kimberly Bose, Secretary of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, asking Dominion to revise its Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan and address pollution concerns if any inaccuracies about the pipeline project are discovered. Leifer requested FERC deny the variances Dominion requested and asked FERC to withhold further approvals for the proposed project until Dominion's data could be compared with the data from Toxics Targeting.
Frank Mack, a spokesman for Dominion, stands by the company's mapping of the Borger Compressor Station Site. He also said the company will leave wetlands untouched.
"Under the FERC’s Wetland and Waterbody Construction and Mitigation Procedures, there is no requiremen' to remain outside the 50-foot buffer of any wetland or waterbody. We are not in violation of anything, so there is either a misunderstanding or someone was misinformed," Mack said. "FERC has a process as part of the procedures. The expectation is to have a 50-foot buffer between any wetland or waterbody and any limits of disturbance. If we cannot, we ask for a variance and can obtain permission as long as we can justify it. In this case, we made our case, the FERC agreed and it approved our requested variances for workspace placement. We simply got permission to do work a little closer than the suggested 50 feet. None of the variances for this project will impact any wetland or waterbody."
Mack also dismissed Hang's claims.
"The wetland and streams were delineated by independent professional wetland scientists," Mack said. "We designed our workspace around the wetlands and presented the plan to the FERC, which approved the wetland and work limits and agreed that we would not be impacting any wetland at Borger Station."