Ever wonder about that little river seperating Brooklyn and Queens?

While fiddling around on GoogleEarth I couldn’t figure out why the riverfront of Newtown Creek wasn’t developed with pricey industrial to residential conversions, bars and parks. In this city we can use every bit of remaining nature we can find.

A brief search instantly explained it all. Newtown Creek is one of the most polluted waterways in the country, and I’d imagine the world. Still the site of a continuous, decades long oil spill (17+ million gallons and counting) courtesy of our friends at ExxonMobil and ChevronTexaco. Newtown Creek has been a US Superfund site for years and area residents have long known of the putrid water and acrid stench. However, it appears the polluted waterway is gaining recognition as residents of Greenpoint file suite against Exxon, BP, and Chevron.

Additional, info at Riverkeeper.org, Wikipedia and the EPA.

And for two points extra credit: Please explain how three companies currently turning a combined (estimate rounded down) $15 BILLION ($15,000,000,000) third-quarter PROFITS can’t fix this.

Bonus: Maspeth, to the north of Newton Creek, comes from the Native Americans meaning “at the bad water place.”