NEW YORK -- New York's attorney general told Exxon Mobil and two other oil companies Thursday that he intends to sue them for taking decades to clean up a giant underground pond of petroleum left by the refineries that once lined Brooklyn's waterfront. In a statement, Andrew Cuomo accused Exxon Mobil of leaving a "toxic footprint" in New York City, then doing "as little as possible to address the dangers that it created."
The subterranean slick, hidden beneath more than 50 acres of homes and businesses, is believed to have been floating on Brooklyn's water table for at least half a century.
Exxon accepted responsibility for much of the spill in 1990 and constructed a pumping system that has helped to gradually extract 9.3 million gallons of oil from the ground. It has said the recovery's delicate nature makes it difficult to extract any faster. "We take our environmental responsibility very seriously, and we are very committed to cleaning up the site," company spokeswoman Prem Nair said.
Other defendants will include the oil companies Chevron and BP, which own facilities believed to have contributed to the pollution. Spokesmen for the companies objected to being named as defendants and said they also had been actively participating in the cleanup.
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