The Mystery of Newtown Creek - The Ripple Effect: The Fate of Freshwater in the Twenty-First Century - page 7

CHAPTER 2
The Mystery of Newtown Creek
“BLACK MAYONNAISE”
At 12:05 p.m. on October 5, 1950 , a huge explosion rocked Greenpoint, Brooklyn. As
shards of concrete and specks of tar flew like shrapnel, a ten-foot-wide hole was ripped
out of the pavement, twenty-five heavy manhole covers shot into the sky, windows in
over five hundred buildings were shattered, and residents stumbled about in an ear-
ringing daze. There were a few minor injuries, but, remarkably, no one was killed. After
examining the crater and interviewing residents, city investigators concluded that the ex-
plosion had been caused by petroleum and other industrial pollutants that had leaked
from storage bunkers or deliberately been poured into the neighborhood's soil and water,
had pooled underground, and spontaneously combusted. The inspectors issued a report
on the blast, noting that chemicals had been leaking from industrial sites in Green-point
since the nineteenth century. Then they moved on to other things. Nothing was done to
clean up the toxins.
The smell of hydrocarbons wafted through the neighborhood; clothes hung out to
dry became stained; people and their pets suffered mysterious ailments. Yet, for decades,
no one seemed to notice—or, at least, the residents of Greenpoint, who were mostly
working-class immigrants from insular Polish, Italian, Irish, and Hispanic communities,
never complained.
As the petroleum and other chemicals continued to seep, they tainted much of the soil
and groundwater in Greenpoint undetected. Much more obvious was the rainbow-hued
oil slick that floated down Newtown Creek, a 3.8-mile inlet of the East River that runs
through the neighborhood and defines the Brooklyn/Queens border: it was slowly but
plainly transformed into a winding, ink-black question mark in the heart of New York
City.
• • •
By 2010, the oil spill beneath Brooklyn was estimated to contain at least 17 million to
30 million gallons of hydrocarbons and other toxic compounds, in pockets up to twenty-
five feet deep, though the exact amount remains unknown. At the low end, this estimate
represents 6 million more gallons of oil than the 10.8 million gallons of crude spilled by