The Greenpoint Community Environmental Fund(GCEF) has announced it’s final round of grants, for an additional $1M investment in sustainability initiatives in Greenpoint. Funding a total of 15 projects, this fifth round of GCEF funding is expected to be the last for the $19.5 million-dollar fund, which to date has funded some 40 community based projects.
The fund is the legacy of dirty oil, and represents the culmination of a decades-long litigation by the city, the state, and associated stakeholders to hold ExxonMobil responsible for the largest oil spill in US history, which occurred over the course of decades on what was historically the site of Standard Oil’s refineries along Newtown Creek. A 2011 consent decree, negotiated by the Attorney General of New York State, set the terms for a $25M settlement with ExxonMobil, out of which $19.5M was set aside to create the GCEF.
Funded projects include the usual suspects of neighborhood green groups, including the Newtown Creek Alliance, Neighbors Allied for Good Growth, and GrowNYC. Other grantees include PS110, which will use the money to build a new garden; and the Ziemia project, adding to the recently unveiled sculpture in McGolrick Park. A full rundown of funded projects can be found on GCEF’s website.
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With this final round of funding, GCEF will officially close out its operations in North Brooklyn, having expended the bulk of its capitalization to leverage some $54M in investments in the neighborhood. Past projects have funded everything from putting garbage cans on the streets of Greenpoint to creating one of the city’s most tantalizing gardens on the roof of an industrial building alongside Newtown Creek.