National Grid Asks Court to Spread Blame for Gowanus Cleanup

One of the companies the EPA has identified as responsible for a heavily polluted Superfund site in Brooklyn is now asking a federal court to spread the financial responsibility across 40 other defendants.

The complaint filed Wednesday threatens to complicate the ongoing Gowanus Canal cleanup effort, which has dragged on for decades.

The Environmental Protection Agency has pinned responsibility for pollution in the canal on Brooklyn Union Gas Co., now doing business as National Grid New York.

But in its complaint in the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York, Brooklyn Union said the 40 other parties have released hazardous substances into the canal, and that the company has been trying to persuade them to “pay their fair share of costs for the cleanup” for years.

Despite those efforts, the 40 parties have refused to pay anything, according to Brooklyn Union.

“By their intransigence, the recalcitrant, remaining responsible parties are threatening to undermine the entire effort to clean up the canal,” the company said.

The identified parties include companies like Consolidated Edison, Hess Corp., the Kraft Heinz Co., Phillips 66 Co., the City of New York, and Texaco. Also included in the list are the Metropolitan Transit Authority and a group of federal agencies including the Army, Navy, Coast Guard, and US Postal Service.

Brooklyn Union’s complaint includes a highly detailed description of the historical operations in and around the canal.

The remediation of the canal is expected to cost more than $1 billion, “a sum far too large to be disproportionately shouldered by Brooklyn Union and its local Brooklyn customers,” according to the complaint.

The company, pointing to the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), asked the court to calculate each defendant’s financial responsibility by taking into account their former operations along the canal, the hazardous substances they used, the waste streams they generated, the pathways for those streams into the canal, and the actions they have taken to clean up.

In July, the EPA said Brooklyn Gas was one of six entities that bore the most responsibility for contamination across the dirtiest section of the remediation area. The agency said it had settled on those six parties based on “extensive investigations and the historical operations at the site.”

The other five entities flagged by the EPA were Consolidated Edison of New York; Hess Corp.; Honeywell International; the City of New York; and The Brooklyn Improvement Co.

ArentFox Schiff LLP represents Brooklyn Union Gas.

The case is Brooklyn Union Gas Co. v. Consolidated Edison Co. of New York, E.D.N.Y., No. 1:24-cv-06993, complaint filed 10/3/24.