by
Stand on the Pulaski Bridge that links Brooklyn and Queens and you're in limbo above what experts call the most polluted waterway in North America.
Belching trucks rumble by. Warning bells signal an approaching train. A barge piled high with rusting cars floats near the water's edge.
Behind me, crews hammer away on a gigantic sewage plant that sends off noxious fumes.
Below me, the water flowing toward the East River is visibly laced with shiny, slick sheens of purple.
Ty Harvey has walked over this bridge every day for 3 and a half years. If he looks up he can see the Chrysler building against Manhattan's skyline. And if he looks down…
AX (Harvey :07)
You'll see oil seeping out of the ground from the sides of the banks.
NARR
Greenpoint native Joe Rudnicki grew up just feet from the base of this bridge.
AX (Rudnicki :08) There were days in the summer when you could see the air. It was yellow and the stench was horrible. I think we all live in the shadow of the oil companies. It's just a fact, that's the way we live.
NARR
Copper, chromium, lead, mercury...these are just some of the components that run through this waterway. Rudnicki and Harvey had resigned themselves to living with these contaminants forever. But now the companies allegedly responsible for polluting the creek have just weeks to show the state they're making progress with the clean up.
Otherwise, the Attorney General says he will move ahead with a lawsuit. And if it's successful, Exxon Mobil, Chevron, BP, Phelps Dodge and Keyspan would be subjected to more investigations, more stringent spill recovery and substantial fines.
Exxon is the state's main target after oil from an accident in the 1950s leaked into the soil and groundwater. No one noticed the spill until 1978. Then in the 1990s the oil company agreed to help clean up the mess by pumping toxins out of the ground.
Gordon Johnson at the Attorney General's office says Exxon isn't working fast enough to repair the damage. He said, QUOTE, Exxon is not dumping oil on their land but you can see oil leaking into the creek. That gives a good reason to believe they're violating the law.
Barry Wood is the Exxon's Greenpoint spokesman. He says a clean up of this magnitude is a complex process.
AX (Wood :14)
Because of the terrain and of the ground and the area in which we are working, remediation projects like this just take time to complete. We're committed to remediating the site until the project is finished.
NARR
Wood says the company has sucked groundwater and 9 million gallons of oil through recovery wells since 1979. The water is treated and discarded. The oil goes into a storage tank until its disposal offsite. The wells, he says, are in constant operation.
Sound of construction rolls underneath
So are the cranes, and the hammers in other parts of Greenpoint. This neighborhood is growing despite environmental hazards that persist here. A park is cropping up just feet from the Pulaski Bridge in the shadow of an old warehouse. The new sewage plant is near completion. Families are moving in, next to longtime resident Laura Hoffman.
AX (Hoffman :20)
I see condos going up right along McGuiness Boulevard, and the fact is some of these buildings are just a block and a half away from the sewage treatment facility. I do want good things to happen to the neighborhood. But people have the right to know what kind of risk they have. I truly believe there is a lot of environmental risk in Greenpoint.
On this afternoon, Hoffman is sitting at the table in her apartment just blocks from the creek. She is a participant in another lawsuit urging the oil companies to clean up.
Sound of flipping pages of album
The 48-year old mother who has lived in Greenpoint her entire life sifts through an old photo album. There's a picture of her son pulling crabs from the water. And then there are photos of the banks drenched in oil.
AX (Hoffman :12)
This is a scene from the creek and I wrote here, What a shame: an old but cute pier with stairs and antique lamp post on one of the most polluted parts of the creek.
Hoffman calls the creek her family's second home. She gave her husband a high five when they learned of the state's intent to sue Exxon. A surprise victory, she called it.
Still, millions of gallons of oil remain in the ground near her apartment. Hoffman dreams of the day when she'll actually eat the crabs her family pulls from in Newtown Creek. For now, she says they'll just toss their catch back into the murky waters.
For Columbia Radio News, I'm Peter O'Dowd