The northeast area of Greenpoint, between North Henry Road, Norman Avenue, and Newtown Creek, has been heavily industrialized and the site of assorted petroleum industries for over 140 years. Oil refining operations date back to 1834 with the refining of whale oil. According to one revealed report, petroleum refining operations started as early as 1854, with the production of kerosene, as naptha and gasoline were thought of by-products of the refining process. By 1870 over 50 refineries were located along the banks of Newtown Creek and by 1892, the majority of the area refineries were bought and consolidated into the standard Oil Belief. Round 1900, gasoline and gas oils grew to become the dominant product refined or saved in terminal amenities in the Greenpoint area. Following the breakup of the Trust in 1911, ownership of the refinery property in Greenpoint reverted to the usual Oil Company of latest York (SOCONY) and these operations grew to become the SOCONY (later Mobil Oil Company) Brooklyn Refinery. The refinery reportedly had a capacity to refine over 33,000 barrels (1.4 million gallons) of crude oil a day and produced gas oils, gasoline, kerosene, and refinery oil. Additionally saved inside the previous refinery had been petroleum additives and miscellaneous refining by-products.
Refinery operations at the former ExxonMobil Brooklyn Refinery ceased in 1966. The refinery was subsequently demolished and vital portions of the refinery property have been offered. A number of of the subdivided lots were retained by Mobil Oil Corporation, while the opposite tons were offered to Amoco Oil Company (which turned BP and now owned by Kinder Morgan [KM]), United Kingsway Carpet Firm (subsequently renamed Long Island Carpet Cleaners, Inc.), and others.
The heaps retained by ExxonMobil have been utilized as a petroleum bulk storage terminal until 1993, when storage operations ceased on the property.
Amoco Oil Company (currently owned by Kinder Morgan [KM]) bought a parcel of the previous ExxonMobil Brooklyn Refinery in 1968 and constructed a bulk gas storage terminal on its portion of the property that began operation in 1970 and which continues in operation right this moment. The KM terminal is 9.98 acres and has 12 aboveground and 1 underground storage tanks, with 2 loading racks. The storage capacity of the terminal is 5,902,512 gallons and has been used to retailer diesel gas, #2 gas oil, kerosene, gasoline, and ethanol.
In addition to the petroleum facilities on the previous ExxonMobil terminal site, the Paragon Oil Company occupied a portion of the property north of Bridgewater Street, between Apollo Street and Meeker Avenue. Paragon Oil was purchased in 1960 by Texaco Oil, now often known as Chevron-Texaco Company. Paragon operated a terminal storing gasoline, kerosene, diesel gas, gas oil (numbers 2, 4, and 6) and lube oil at this location till approximately 1968 when Peerless Importers (now Empire Merchants) bought the property and constructed a warehouse for its operations.
Remediation/Recovery Historical past:
On September 2, 1978, the U. S. Coast Guard was making a routine helicopter patrol of Newtown Creek when it seen the signs of an oil spill entering Newtown Creek from the world at the tip of Meeker Avenue. A subsequent investigation concluded that the world of the spill underneath the Greenpoint space was in excess of 52 acres and the total spill volume, as estimated in 1979, was approximately 17 million gallons of petroleum merchandise.
The product beneath the Greenpoint spill area encompass a blend of petroleum associated liquids (oils, naphtha, kerosene, gasoline, etc). This blend rests at the top of the water desk as a free product plume, which currently is known to extend as far north as the ExxonMobil Brooklyn terminal, as far south because the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, and to the west to an area located between Monitor Avenue and Kingsland Avenue. The plume has impacted the soils and groundwater in each a shallow aquifer under the previous refinery properties and a deeper regional aquifer that extends outdoors the former refinery areas.
Petroleum product recovery operations are at the moment being performed within five distinct areas: the previous ExxonMobil Terminal, the KM Terminal, the commercial/industrial/residential space southwest of the KM Terminal recognized as the ExxonMobil Off-Site Plume, the location of the former Paragon Oil Terminal, which is currently the situation of the Peerless Importers/Empire Merchants distribution facility, and the Apollo Street Creek Parcels located between the KM Terminal and the location of the previous Paragon Oil Terminal. Product restoration systems have been in place since 1979. ExxonMobil entered into two consent orders with NYSDEC in 1990 and began upgrades to its restoration programs, including the design and construction of a new and expanded system to get well free product from the Off-Site Area. Following the invention of free product seepage by means of the facility’s bulkhead into Newtown Creek, ExxonMobil additionally began recovery actions on the Peerless Importers/former Paragon Oil site in February 1991. Mobil continued restoration actions until Might 2005 when Texaco took over that portion of the challenge.
This depiction is one illustration of plume extent. Resulting from product recovery and continuing investigation, information and circumstances are changing. Concerned parties have slight variations on this normal depiction.
Remediation Methods:
Four different free product restoration systems are presently working in Greenpoint. These embody the previous ExxonMobil Terminal Restoration and Containment System (RCS), the KM Terminal Restoration System, the ExxonMobil Off-Site Plume Recovery System and the previous Paragon Oil Terminal Recovery System. Important therapy system upgrades to extend the free product recovery capability and water treatment capabilities of all the recovery techniques have been completed over the years. The ExxonMobil Terminal RCS at the moment consists of four energetic dual-pump free-product recovery wells and a water remedy system with a capability of up to 450 gallons per minute (gpm). The KM Terminal system includes 12 twin-pump free product recovery wells, short-term recovery operations in two monitoring wells, and a new groundwater remedy system that went into operation in 2014. The ExxonMobil Off-Site Plume Recovery System, which was completed in 1995 as a part of the Consent Order with DEC, contains 15 lively dual-pump free-product recovery wells and a central water therapy system with a capacity of as much as 430 gpm. An expansion of the system completed in 2009 added 10 of these recovery wells. The former Paragon Oil Terminal recovery system at the moment consists of thirteen total fluids recovery pumps that take away each product and water for subsequent separation and therapy.
By way of these combined efforts, a complete of over 12.6 million gallons of product has been recovered, and over 5.2 billion gallons of groundwater has been recovered and handled by 2015. Current groundwater pumping rates (starting late 2009) have exceeded 1,000,000 gallons of groundwater per day that is handled and discharged in one of the energetic programs. Since 1979, the ExxonMobil and KM terminal systems have recovered over 1.9 million gallons and 3.5 million gallons of free product, respectively. The Meeker Avenue Task Force, operated by Mobil and Amoco from 1979 to 1989 at the foot of Meeker Avenue within the Off-Site Area, recovered an extra 170,000 gallons of free product. The ExxonMobil Off-Site Free-Product Restoration System, which changed the Meeker Avenue Activity Drive system, has recovered over 6.7 million gallons of free product so Petroleum Equipment far. In 2015, a complete of roughly 108,500 gallons of petroleum merchandise was recovered by the venture.
Investigation of Soil Vapor and Residential Indoor Air:
On September 16, 2005, NYSDEC approved a work plan from ExxonMobil to sample soil gas at roughly 16 extra points in the Greenpoint Space across the off-site product plume. The aim of the sampling was to determine if vapors from the product plume are attenuated earlier than impacting indoor air as believed based mostly on earlier investigations. ExxonMobil started the investigation on September 19, 2005 and it was later accomplished by NYSDEC and NYSDOH. A report on the State’s sampling was finalized in March 2006 and is accessible on the general public Documents page of this webpage.
The soil vapor investigation carried out by Exxon-Mobil in 2005 concluded that the free-product plume will not be contributing to concentration of contaminants in residential indoor air. The depth of the contamination allowing for its biodegradation and presence of a clay/silt layer to prevent migration are components in its conclusion. The Department has reviewed the data and agrees with the report’s conclusion; nevertheless, as a way to verify (or refute) this speculation, the Division conducted a residential indoor air investigation to gather the data necessary to verify this conceptual model.
In the course of the 2006-07 winter heating season, a vapor intrusion sampling investigation was completed at 52 properties in the Greenpoint space of Brooklyn by the NYSDEC. The research area was selected by NYSDEC and consisted primarily of residential constructions with some commercial operations. Sampling was conducted at structures for which property homeowners and tenants had volunteered and supplied permission. Sampling consisted of concurrently gathering vapor/air samples from beneath the constructing slab, ambient basement air, ambient air from the first ground (if the basement was not used as dwelling area), and ambient outside air. As said above, a report of outcomes is out there on the general public Documents page of this webpage. As a result of this effort, the State believes it’s unlikely that vapor intrusion from the subsurface plume is occurring within the buildings examined.
Throughout the winter of 2007-08, the State also conducted observe-up sampling at approximately 20% of the houses included within the preliminary sampling. These results have been according to the preliminary sampling and have confirmed conclusions draw to this point. In September 2009, NYSDOH and ATSDR concluded that petroleum-related compounds within the ExxonMobil Greenpoint Off-site free-product plume area usually are not expected to hurt individuals’s health via the soil vapor intrusion pathway.
An assessment of soil vapor within the business/industrial area above the contamination has continued, with elevated levels of methane, benzene, and other petroleum associated compounds recognized to exist round past petroleum storage and distribution operations. The Department requires ExxonMobil to yearly sample everlasting soil vapor monitoring factors, collect outside ambient air samples, and display screen the indoor air of buildings located within the off-site plume space to assess any potential impact from soil vapor. Notifications regarding these outcomes have been sent to companies in areas with potential impacts.
Since June 2010, ExxonMobil has been operating a soil vapor extraction (SVE) system on the intersection of Norman Avenue, Bridgewater Avenue, and Apollo Road, to mitigate the presence of shallow soil vapor contamination in this area. The SVE system has a collection of wells the place a vacuum is applied beneath the ground and contamination is removed as a gas and handled as obligatory. Extracted soil vapor from the ExxonMobil system is conveyed to the oxidation unit positioned on the Off-Site Plume Recovery System constructing for treatment. Based mostly on the circulate charge and concentration of contamination, it is estimated that the SVE system has recovered the equal of approximately 87,700 gallons of free-product. ExxonMobil accomplished an expansion of the SVE system inside OU-5 in 2015. They’re currently in the process of increasing the system within OU-7 and OU-eight to mitigate elevated concentrations of benzene and methane vapors observed within the subsurface. Enlargement of the system in OU-7 and OU-eight is anticipated to be completed in early 2016.
At the former Paragon Oil Terminal property, Texaco voluntarily put in a sub-slab depressurization (SSD) system on the 50 Bridgewater Avenue building in 2010 to stop the potential for soil vapor migration in to the buildings. The SSD system is composed of three lateral and seven vertical extraction points, with the recovered vapors handled through two vapor-section granular activated carbon items. Texaco also performs a month-to-month inspection of the ground and all the monitoring well situated contained in the warehouse to make sure that both are airtight to further reduces the potential for subsurface vapor migration.
