Testing of Greenpoint's groundwater has revealed contamination by dry cleaning chemical, with alarmingly high levels found under the corner of Kingsland and Norman Avenues, right by McGolrick Park. Investigators started testing the area in 2008, and despite resistance from homeowners, they traced the pollutants and are naming names: They say former businesses in the area, including Spic and Span Cleaners, Klink Cosmo Cleaners, and current businesses ACME Metal Works and ACME Steel and Brass Foundry are to blame. But what's a Greenpointer to do? more ›

Finally deciding a lawsuit first filed in 2003, a federal jury has found Exxon Mobil liable for $104.7 million in compensatory damages for contaminating groundwater in NYC. The city had originally sought $250 million to cover construction of a treatment plant to purify the water in five wells in southeastern Queens. (The well water is used when the upstate reservoirs system is out of service during repairs, droughts and other emergencies.) The jury found Exxon Mobil guilty of failing to warn government agencies when it decided to add M.T.B.E. to gasoline. So what is M.T.B.E.? more ›

The Green Energy Council is sounding the alarm on "cold patch," a blacktop material used to patch potholes, estimating that the stuff leaches 240,000 gallons of toxic fuel oil into the soil or gets washed off into the sewage system or evaporates into the air our children breath. The president of the group tells the Post, "You're talking about an extraordinary amount of diesel fuel." Cold patch has been used to fill potholes for years, but there have been no studies on the health impact of its toxic runoff. The city DOT has been a major cold patch consumer, but they recently agreed to buy 5,000 tons of a new type of environmentally friendly biodegradable type of cold patch called GreenPatch. Oddly, the Post insists the DOT "had no clue" GreenPatch was eco-friendy until their know-it-all egghead reporter told the agency. more ›