Former SOCONY/Exxon-Mobil Buffalo Refinery (Buffalo, New York)

 historical layer / disappeared object, oil refinery

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Founded as a private oil refinery in 1880 to supply fuels to the booming cities of Buffalo and Lackawanna, this site was purchased by the Standard Oil Company of New York (SOCONY) in 1892.

Greatly expanding both the size and capabilities of the refinery over the next two decades, SOCONY arranged for the dredging and straightening of the Buffalo River alongside the refinery to permit lake tankers and barges to discharge and load their cargo at the facility. Refining crude oil into various forms of gasoline, kerosene and other distillates, the refinery boomed along with the area and provided thousands of jobs to local workers through both world wars and the great depression.

As SOCONY became Exxon and Exxon merged with Mobil, the refinery continued to operate, focusing more and more on distributing its goods via subterranean pipeline, rail, and truck, as its waterfront access was growing increasingly hazardous due to pollution. Following a series of river fires in the late 1960's, environmental concerns focused on the numerous factories, mills and not least of all, refineries operating along the Buffalo River, and for Exxon-Mobil the writing was on the wall.

Scaling down refinery operations at the site into the 1980's, Exxon-Mobil authorized the demolition of the majority of the refinery infrastructure in the 1990's, opting to retain the pipeline and tankage facilities on the Eastern third of their former property. After funding limited environmental remediation efforts onsite for the land to be re-used by new tenants, Exxon-Mobil formally sold the balance of their property to the Buckeye Product Terminal which continues to operate the tankage and pipeline terminus facilities.

Recent testing of the former refinery lands have indicated massive environmental contamination in the soil and substrate due to spills and improper waste disposal. To date local, state and federal authorities are discussing remediation plans for the site to prevent further leaching of pollutants into the Buffalo River.