Oil giant Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) has agreed to pay $25 million to settle a lawsuit over a decades-old oil spill and related environmental contamination in Brooklyn, New York City, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said Wednesday. The settlement, filed in Federal Court in the Eastern District, resolve claims from a lawsuit initiated by Cuomo against ExxonMobil in July 2007.
Under the settlement, Exxon Mobil will conduct a comprehensive cleanup of its oil and related contamination at its Greenpoint facility and in the surrounding community, including oil floating on top of the water table, contaminated groundwater, soil as well as soil vapors. The settlement also requires ExxonMobil to keep the cleanup moving forward expeditiously. The settlement is subject to final review by U.S. District Judge Kiyo Matsumoto of the Eastern District of New York.
In the late 1970s, oil spills from Exxon Mobil's Greenpoint refinery and storage facility were discovered seeping into Newtown Creek, creating a plume of oil floating on top of the water table. Some of the oil dissolved in the groundwater and contaminated surrounding soil. It is estimated that at least 17 million gallons of oil were released underneath Greenpoint and that at least 55 acres of the community are now contaminated as a result. The massive spill has been a source of contamination in the Greenpoint community for decades.
Irving, Texas-based Exxon Mobil will pay $25 million for penalties, costs and improving the local environment. This includes a payment of $19.5 million for environmental projects that will benefit the Greenpoint community, which is the largest single payment of its kind in New York's history. The payment also includes $500,000 in civil penalties and damages, $1.5 million to compensation the state for past cleanups associated with the spill, and $3.5 million for future oversight costs.
Cuomo said, "For far too long, residents of Greenpoint have been forced to live with an environmental nightmare lurking just beneath their homes, their businesses and their community. With this settlement, ExxonMobil will be held accountable for fully cleaning up this environmental disaster."
Cuomo noted that the settlement with ExxonMobil does not incorporate the investigation and cleanup of Newtown Creek as it is a federally-designated Superfund site and will therefore be addressed by the federal government. However, the state reserves all of it rights with respect to the Newtown Creek, Cuomo said.
XOM closed Wednesday's regular trading session at $69.01, up $0.07 or 0.10% on a volume of 17.47 million shares.
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