State regulators have homed in on 41 properties along Newtown Creek that may be leaking pollution back into the waterway. 

By COLE SINANIAN | news@queensledger.com

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has identified 41 sites along Newtown Creek that could be contaminating the waterway with petroleum residue and other chemicals leftover from its long history of industrial use. 

The DEC’s NYC Mega Projects coordinator Heidi-Marie Dudek presented the findings of the agency’s Newtown Creek Upland Study over Zoom at a community meeting in Long Island City on November 19. Between 2021 and 2023, regulators surveyed 155 properties bordering the creek, ultimately concluding that 41 could be potential sources of pollution. 

These sites included the Amtrak yard in Sunnyside, and properties occupied by businesses like Empire Transit Mix, Pebble Lane Associates, and Bayside Fuel Oil Depot, as well as former heavy industrial properties like the Phelps Dodge Refining Corporation and Pratt Oil Works.  

The area around Newtown Creek — which covers much of the current North Brooklyn Industrial Business Zone in Greenpoint and East Williamsburg — was used throughout the 19th and 20th-centuries to house oil storage facilities, manufactured gas plants, foundries, dry-cleaning businesses and oil and chemical refineries, a legacy that’s left it among America’s most polluted waterways. In 1978, a Coast Guard helicopter discovered the Greenpoint oil spill, one of the largest in US history, which would ultimately cause 17 million gallons of oil to seep into  the creek. After a series of lawsuits, ExxonMobil was ordered to pay for its cleanup. 

The Environmental Protection Agency declared Newtown Creek a federal superfund site in 2010, beginning a long remediation process set to finish by 2035. In addition to federal remediation efforts, state regulators at the DEC are conducting a Brownfield cleanup program to remove toxic soil from the area and limit contaminated stormwater runoff. 

The DEC’s Newtown Creek Upland Study aimed to identify potential sources of contamination from a handful of properties bordering the creek that are not already in a remediation program. However, Dudek urged that the results were only preliminary and that further investigation is needed. 

“It means that we need to look at them a little more carefully, maybe adjust some sampling if it’s already within a remedial program or see whether or not they need to be added to a remedial program,” Dudek said. 

Investigators first assessed the creek in 2021, looking for “seeps” — or locations where chemicals appeared to be entering the creek from the ground — and “sheens,” where petroleum residue accumulates along the water’s surface in a polychromatic film. After suspicious sites were identified, officials returned in 2022 and later in 2023 during low tide for subsequent sampling. 

Dudek discussed a few sites from the study in-depth. At 1301 Metropolitan Avenue, investigators found light petroleum contamination and verified that it once held an underground storage tank. Dudek confirmed that it would undergo a Track Four cleanup in 2026, which would remove groundwater contamination and cover toxic substances in the soil to prevent them from migrating to the surface. 

At 4681 Metropolitan Avenue, investigators found volatile organic compounds (VOCs), carcinogenic substances that typically contain chlorine and are found in a variety of industrial chemicals. Though DEC investigators couldn’t find a direct source, they did install a soil-vapor-mitigation system to prevent VOCs from entering buildings on the property while a longer-term remediation plan is in the works, Dudek said. 

She assured residents that the DEC is working closely with the EPA to ensure all cleanup measures are coordinated with the EPA to ensure one agency isn’t undoing the other’s work.

“DEC is working in conjunction with EPA,” Dudek said “So we’re not doing this in isolation. We run all of the data and the RAPs (remedial action plan) through EPA to make sure that they concur that what we’re doing is going to be protective of their remedy too.” 

But residents who attended the meeting expressed frustration at the cleanup’s slow progress and concern that the DEC’s and EPA’s independent but sometimes overlapping remedial programs in the area may mean that regulators are underestimating the pollution’s extent. 

“A lot of work has gone into the site,” said Willis Elkins, a Sunnyside resident and Executive Director of the Newtown Creek Alliance. “But we don’t feel like a lot has been accomplished in terms of cleanup goals.” 

Elkins’ organization hosts youth workshops, volunteer cleanups and activities to restore the area’s environmental health and improve local access to Newtown Creek. Recently, the Newtown Creek Alliance held a joint “community share-out” with the Billion Oyster Project focused on restoring the creek’s mussel and oyster habitats. 

Before the arrival of European colonists, Newtown Creek was for many centuries filled with  plentiful fish, oysters, and waterfowl, which the indigenous Mespeatches people (the namesake of modern “Maspeth”) collected for food. Now, it’s hardly accessible to those living on its banks. 

”There are so many different layers of contamination in the area, and some are more of a direct hazard to folks than others are,” Elkins said. ”It’s impacting our ability to safely interact with the waterway.”