Leaking Oil Barge at Exxon Terminal Threatens N.Y. Bay
About 27,000 gallons of heating oil spilled into a busy waterway Wednesday a few miles from the Statue of Liberty when the fuel was loaded onto a leaking barge at an Exxon Corp. terminal, the Coast Guard said.
Exxon offered to help the Coast Guard clean up the spill but said the barge was not an Exxon vessel. The No. 6 heating oil was being loaded at the company’s terminal by private contractors when it spilled into the Kill Van Kull, a waterway that separates New Jersey from the New York City borough of Staten Island.
The early-morning spill occurred a few miles from the confluence of the Van Kull and Arthur Kill, the scene of a Jan. 1 spill in which 567,000 gallons of heating oil leaked from a pipe connecting Exxon USA’s terminal with the company’s Bayway refinery in Linden, N. J. The waterway is a busy barge and tanker route that connects with Upper New York Bay.
Environmentalists expressed concern that tides and wind could move the slick into areas of New York Harbor that serve as breeding grounds for migratory waterfowl.
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