This is one of many photos that hit our inbox yesterday of a horrid mess at 40 Berry Street in Williamsburg, where construction activity seems to have ruptured some underground oil tanks that were being removed. By yesterday afternoon the state Department of Environmental Conservation had checked out the spill, whose exact parameters are unknown. We had featured the site in question, calling it the Mud Pit of Death, because of very dangerous conditions involving crumbling dirt and a fence that opens to a two-story mud pit. (Name now officially changed to the Berry Oil Pit.) The site will be home to a big luxury rental building whose investors include Lehman Brothers and the California State Teachers Retirement Fund. The resident that sent this and other photos writes:

Oil Spill on 40 Berry ST (Corner of N 12th ST, Williamsburg). There are at least 8 tanks being removed. Oil has leaked into the surrounding soil. People in neighboring buildings are complaining of headaches. In one building across from the site there are 5 children ranging in age, from 5 weeks to seven years old. We are nervous about health issues related to the rapid excavation of several contaminated sites on the Northside.

A follow-up email added this information:

The oil spill seems to extend to neighboring sites as well. I had the DEC here this morning to confirm the problem, but no solution was presented. They basically said that all of NYC was toxic.

Another Roebling Oil Field (which is cleaned up per Department of Environmental Conservation standards), but different.