page_title: Constable Hook
section_title: Refineries and tank farm-liquid storage
hierarchical_section_title: Constable Hook / History / Refineries and tank farm-liquid storage
caption_attribution_description: English: Looking southeast at oil tanks at the corner of Hook Road and Commerce Street in southern en:Constable Hook, New Jersey on a sunny afternoon
context_page_description: Constable Hook is a cape located on the north side of the outlet of Kill van Kull into Upper New York Bay in Bayonne, New Jersey.
  The cape has long been an important site of marine transfer operations in the Port of New York and New Jersey. Just offshore, Robbins Reef Light serves to guide harbor traffic. Since the late 20th century, brownfields have been repurposed for recreational and commercial uses.
  Historically the term Constable Hook may be used more broadly, as synonymous with Bergen Point such as when it defined the southern extent of Bergen Neck and of Bergen Township when established in 1693. On March 15, 1861, the New Jersey Legislature approved unification of Constable Hook along with Bergen Point, Centerville and Salterville into the Township of Bayonne. Three weeks later the Charter for the City of Bayonne was signed by Governor Charles S. Olden.
context_section_description: In 1872, John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil bought 176 acres of land on Constable Hook, and by 1885 there was a pipeline connecting it to the field of Texas. Three years later, Prentice Oil Company was also established at Constable Hook. This company was later sold to a subsidiary of the Pennsylvania Railroad called Empire Transportation Company, a competitor of Standard Oil. Other oil companies like Tidewater and Ocean Oil also built refineries on Constable Hook. The oil companies attracted Hungarian, Czech and Slovakian immigrants from Eastern Europe.
  The Van Buskirk farmhouse was demolished in 1906 by the Standard Oil Company, which owned the land and were expanding their refinery.  Standard Oil has now refurbished the cemetery.
  On July 4, 1900, a fire broke out in the Standard Oil refinery. It started when lightning caused a number of the large oil tanks to explode. Flaming oil spread out into New York Bay. It took three days to extinguish the fire that in the end caused $2.5 million in damages yet only nine injuries.
  During the Bayonne refinery strikes of 1915–1916 workers at the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey went on strike over wages and union organization. Bayonne police battled the strikers causing the death of one striker. A week later, on July 22, a riot broke out as gunfire would take the lives of four more men, one as young as 19, and injuring many others, one as young as twelve. A second strike would occur the following year. On October 10, a riot broke out that left three policeman and several strikes injured. As the riots continued in the streets, police and strikers traded gunfire and one woman was killed. The strike ended on October 19 as the strikers returned to work and Standard Oil agreed to give everyone a raise.
  The 600 acres (240 ha) facilities of IMTT are located at the southeastern portion of the hook. and were sold it to Macquarie Infrastructure Company in 2014.
  Exxon is responsible for clean-up of environmental damage caused by oil facilities, and has been the subject of extended litigation. As of 2015, Exxon has completed a soil investigation at the 324-acre terminal. It has until May 7, 2016, to finish its groundwater investigation under a bill passed unanimously by the New Jersey Legislature in late 2013 that gave polluters a deadline extension on investigating cleanups. according to the NJ DEP, clean-up at Constable Hook has included excavation, stabilization, capping, and the capturing of ground water contamination and installation of steel wall containment systems. The controversial ExxonMobil-New Jersey environmental contamination settlement was made during the governorship of Chris Christie.
caption: Oil tanks on Hook Road
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