East River Oil Spill Not Over Yet: Cleanup Crews Scrambling Ahead Of Big Storm

VINEGAR HILL, BROOKLYN — The "catastrophic failure" of a Con Edison transformer along the Brooklyn coastline last Sunday continues to wreak havoc on the local environment nearly a week later. The Con Ed transformer spilled 31,000 of its 37,000 gallons of "dielectric oil," used as an insulating fluid for the transformer, into the soil, according to the U.S. Coast Guard — an "unknown" amount of which then leaked into the East River. Parts of the river have been covered in a sickly oil sheen ever since.

The general public didn't find out about the spill until two days after it happened. And even then, they only found out thanks to a tweet from the East River Ferry.

Con Ed did not respond to Patch's repeated inquiries as to why the company didn't say something sooner.

Now, as a big Nor'easter approaches the city, Con Ed cleanup crews, with help from the Coast Guard and the state's Department of Environmental Conservation, are scrambling to "deploy tarps over the affected area to prevent rainwater from washing further dielectric fluid from the transformer site into the East River," the Coast Guard said in an update sent to Patch on Friday afternoon.

Crews have managed to skim 560 gallons of dielectric oil out of the river so far, officials said.

They also said they've detected "trace amounts of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs)," which are "known carcinogens," in river samples.

To avoid somehow ingesting these chemicals, the Coast Guard is warning the public to avoid eating any fish or shellfish from the river; to stay out of the cleanup zone, which currently stretches from the Williamsburg Bridge down to the Brooklyn Bridge; and to basically run the other direction if they see any "sheening" on the water's surface.

No recreational vessels are allowed in the safety zone. Ferries and other commercial boats are being instructed to travel extra slowly so as not to spread the hazardous fluids with their wake.

Photos courtesy of @kroesserstrat/Twitter