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MTA Settles With Homeowners Over Flatbush Bus Depot Oil Spill
The nearly $2.8 million settlement was reached Tuesday night in Brook-lyn Supreme Court following just a day of deliberation by the jury. "This verdict represents a victory for the more than two dozen homeown-ers whose health and property values have been tainted forever due to the MTA's negligence," said Kruger, who praised attorney Dunewood Truglia for his "diligence and persistence" in a David vs. Goliath battle. "Since the day we made the oil spill public back in 1999, we knew in our hearts that the MTA didn't have a leg to stand on," he added. Angry residents besieged Kruger in January 1999 when workers replacing a fuel tank that caused an underground leak seven years earlier, accidentally spilled an estimated 19,000 gallons that found its way into the local water supply and sewer system. Residents living on Coleman Street, five blocks north of the bus de-pot, complained to Kruger's office when the distinctively unpleasant smell of the fuel permeated their homes. The legislator lashed out at the agency for failing to notify the public about a diesel fuel oil spill at the depot, located on Utica and Fillmore avenues. At yesterday's announcement across the street from the bus depot, Kruger said, "While this decision cannot re-write history for those who suffered ...it sends a cautionary message that a large bureaucracy like the MTA can't get away with trying to hood-wink the public." At trial, the defense had argued that the size of the plume had diminished since an estimated 40,000 gallons have been extracted from groundwater after clean-up efforts, but Kruger claimed other estimates of the plume's size put it at 120,000 gallons. At the time of the incident, the MTA said it had taken sufficient mea-sures to clean up the fuel spill, but residents contended that they were not doing it fast enough to satisfy them and relieve them of daily discomforts and potential health problems. A transit spokesman disputed the claims of a homeowner-hired inspector, stating that the Coleman Street residents' problems were unrelated to the bus depot accident, but could not offer a response that explained the odor that residents maintained was "uniquely" fuel-related. Neil S. Friedman
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