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Exxon to pay ${esc.dollar}25 mln for New York City oil spill

by (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2010. Click For Restrictions. http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp | Thomson Reuters Foundation
Wednesday, 17 November 2010 20:41 GMT

* Settlement resolves 2007 lawsuit filed by NY state

* Clean-up covers groundwater, soil

HOUSTON, Nov 17 (Reuters) - Exxon Mobil Corp <XOM.N> will pay ${esc.dollar}25 million as part of a settlement to clean up a decades-old oil spill in New York City, the state's attorney general said on Wednesday.

The settlement, filed in U.S. district court in Brooklyn, requires Exxon to conduct a comprehensive cleanup of its Greenpoint facility in Brooklyn, which includes oil floating on top of the water table, contaminated groundwater and soil.

"For far too long, residents of Greenpoint have been forced to live with an environmental nightmare lurking just beneath their homes, their businesses and their community," Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said in a statement.

New York sued Exxon over the 17 million gallon spill in 2007. The settlement resolves that lawsuit, but still needs final approval by a federal judge, Cuomo's office said.

Exxon's property on the creek was the site of one of the earliest refineries of original U.S. oil giant Standard Oil, but most of the refinery structures were decommissioned and demolished after 1969.

Greenpoint, a waterfront neighborhood that is a longtime home to Polish immigrants and more recently to young city-dwellers, was an industrial hub for shipbuilding, iron making and refining before World War II.

A representative for Irving, Texas-based Exxon was not immediately available to comment.

Exxon, the largest publicly traded oil company in the world, had a profit of ${esc.dollar}7.35 billion in the third quarter of this year.

Shares of Exxon were 17 cents higher at ${esc.dollar}69.11 in afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange. (Reporting by Anna Driver in Houston; Editing by Gary Hill)

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