The fuel reportedly spilled into a creek in Secaucus.

The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection said in a statement that the fuel spilled from a storage tank at the Equinix Data Center and flowed into Anderson Creek, Gothamist reports.

Equinix said the leak was detected on Friday evening.

Gothamist has more:

The creek is a tributary of the Hackensack River, which winds through the Meadowlands and empties into Newark Bay. Larry Hajna, a spokesperson for the state DEP, said the creek is small and narrow in the area of the spill and that the fuel was contained before it reached the river.

Bill Sheehan, the Hackensack Riverkeeper, was leading a boat tour of the river on Saturday afternoon when he saw contractors laying down a boom across the creek to contain the spill. Sheehan, who has been advocating for the river for decades, said he finds it hard to believe the spill remains contained in the creek.

“ The tributaries are the capillary system of the whole ecosystem,” Sheehan said. “All the water that runs off of our land goes into the creeks first, and then runs through the creeks out into the river.”

Equinix said it hired the contractor Clean Harbors to do the remediation work. Hajna said crews will be working on the scene for several days this week.

Equinix said it would conduct a full investigation into what caused the spill.

The company said it contacted the Secaucus Fire Department, which notified the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection and the Hudson Regional Health Commission.

Secaucus Mayor Michael Gonnelli said a “computer glitch” caused the spill.

“This data center’s been here since 2001, over 25 years. We’ve never had a problem before this time,” Gonnelli said, according to News12 New Jersey.

News12 New Jersey shared further:

At the site, Gonnelli said cleanup was roughly three-quarters complete, though the smell of oil still lingered in the air. Barriers have been placed in the waterway to keep the remaining oil contained to that section and out of the larger river.

“There’s a lot of complaints about data centers, I can tell you that,” Gonnelli said. “But right now, they did everything they had to do.”

The DEP said there are no drinking water intakes in the area and that no impacts to wildlife have been reported.

Still, the spill has drawn criticism from environmental groups pushing for tighter restrictions on data centers statewide. Ben Dziobek, executive director of the Climate Revolution Action Network (CRAN), a Gen-Z-led climate organization advocating for a ban on data centers in New Jersey, said in a statement that the incident should reaffirm the need for a statewide moratorium.

“This is what happens when the data center industry is allowed to operate without any rules, and new ones are popping up all over New Jersey,” Dziobek said in a statement. “We need a statewide ban right now before they do any more damage to our communities.”

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