Equinix Fires Engineer After 5,200-Gallon Fuel Spill Into Secaucus Creek

SECAUCUS, NJ — On Monday, Oct. 12 Equinix published this new blog post, specifically addressing the diesel-into-a-creek spill that occurred Sept. 11 at its facility in Secaucus.

Equinix started off its blog post by writing: "We know the past several weeks have been hard for many in our Secaucus community, and we take full responsibility for that ... The overflow resulted from a mechanical failure, and it was not caught in time. For both, we are deeply sorry."

But the most important part of the blog post is the publishing of an internal report Equinix did of the incident. You can read that internal report here: blog.equinix.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/Report-of-Incident.pdf

It begins:

"Equinix’s NY2 data center has operated at 275 Hartz Way in Secaucus, New Jersey for over 24 years. Its customers include financial institutions, telecommunications companies, cloud providers and other critical businesses."

(In fact, Equinix is in the midst of expanding its existing data center site at 275 Hartz Way. The company is making it much larger; it is currently an active construction site. Equinix plans to open Equinix NY10 there and it will be their fifth co-location data center in Secaucus.)

Equinix said they keep several generators on site, because the data center needs to be constantly running. Those generators run on diesel, which is stored in above-ground storage tanks.

"If diesel fuel is left in a tank for too long, it degrades and becomes unusable," said Equinix, so they have to do something called "fuel polishing," which is a mixing of the diesel to "keep it available for emergency use in case of electric grid unavailability."

The fuel spill happened during that fuel "polishing," or mixing process. Debris got into valves that close the fuel tanks, preventing the valves from properly closing.

"A fill valve was stuck in an open position, while an overfill-prevention valve also was prevented from closing properly," wrote Equinix. "The company estimates that the valve blockage and overflow may have begun as early as approximately 12:20 p.m. and continued until approximately 4:00 p.m. when the fuel polishing stopped. During that time, an estimated 5,200 gallons of fuel overflowed the generator tank’s secondary containment. A significant amount of that fuel overflow entered the site’s stormwater drainage system through a catch basin within the generator courtyard. The overflow was discovered at approximately 6:36 p.m. by a security officer performing routine property inspection rounds."

"An on-duty engineer evidently had not recognized or taken action in response to electronic alerts that should have come from the fuel polishing alert system," they wrote.

Was that engineer disciplined?, Patch asked.

"The employee is no longer with the company," responded an Equinix spokeswoman.

Also, the company said its not quite sure what the "debris" was.

"The company’s investigation as to the source of the debris is ongoing," said the spokeswoman.

What is Equinix doing to make sure a fuel spill like this never happens again? (Especially because they are making their data center bigger, so presumably even more diesel will be stored on site.)

"Equinix has disabled the fuel system for the generator involved in the spill and is in the process of replacing all of the site’s tank valves to provide improved responses to potential obstructions," they wrote in the report. "Equinix has instructed all of its data centers in the United States to discontinue automatic fuel polishing until further notice and to only conduct manual fuel polishing activities under direct oversight. The company also is evaluating additional containment systems and measures to divert spills from stormwater drainage, and evaluating enhanced leak detection and alarm systems."

And in other data center news, part of the ON3 site on Rt. 3 (the former Hoffman LaRoche site) is actually zoned for a data center. This is the property on Rt. 3 eastbound where the Starbucks and Chase Bank branch recently opened, plus a Hackensack Meridian urgent care. Hackensack Meridian plans to open a medical school there.

The site is 116 acres total, and an 11-acre parcel of it is zoned for a data center or other permitted use, the Nutley Patch reported this week. Nutley officials said the town hasn’t received any data center applications for planning board approval yet, which would be needed before construction could begin. But a data center is permitted to be built there.

And even more news about data centers in Secaucus will come at Tuesday night's Council meeting (7 p.m., Council chambers), where Mayor Mike Gonnelli said he would debrief the public on what was said at the big meeting today with town residents, CoreSite, Equinix, PSE&G and Veolia water company. Stay tuned for tonight's meeting ...

Related: Data Center Debate Rages In Nutley; Former Hoffman-La Roche Site Is The Battleground

Secaucus Holds Oct. 13 Meeting With CoreSite, Equinix Data Centers And Town Residents