The response was swift. Equipment and workers from DEP and Clean Harbors, Inc. (an international energy and environmental service company) were immediately deployed from their Portland and Hammond offices. By the time the first booms were set on the Pleasant River, van de Sande had bushwhacked up stream and identified a point source at Aunt Marcia’s Brook where it enters Little Stream, a tributary to the Pleasant River.
Foss Construction is a family-owned business three and a half miles up the river in Columbia Falls. An oil truck parked among a fleet of equipment on their Tibbets Town Road property was the source. “Water had gotten in the pump and it froze up” said Randy Foss. “We discovered it about the time people started to arrive”. Before noon, trucks and crews, including a huge vacuum truck from Clean Harbors, were on site. DEP’s Robert Shannon took charge of the cleanup of an estimated 1000 gallons of off-road diesel “Bob and his crew deserve all the kudos. They were very prompt and did a good job,” said Foss.
“One thousand gallons is a sizable spill” according to Shannon, “but what most people don’t realize is that there are spills at various scales
almost every day.” From traffic accidents to leaking home oil tanks, the DEP is charged with managing the cleanup. Regardless of the size, Shannon says, “We take every oil spill seriously.” The process includes digging up and removing all contaminated soil, pumping any recovered oil (in this case 300 gallons) and then methodically collecting any remaining oil with absorbent materials. The process was winding down in Columbia Falls after a week. “But sometimes the last 10 percent can take the longest,” cautions Shannon, who noted that, by day seven, there was no longer a noticeable sheen on the river.
What added complexity to this spill was the hatchery downstream and the need to carbon filter its 50-gallon-per-minute requirement in
order to ensure clean water for the fish. An on-site filtration system has been put in place by the DEP for the “foreseeable future.”
The Downeast Salmon Federation oversees the hatchery where the oil was first noticed. On site are 135,000 newly hatched fry to be stocked upstream in early May, as well as a research project studying the effects of acid rain on salmon smolts. The fry have survived, but according to Shaw, “it is the experiment that we are the most concerned about,” and he fears that the four years and thousands of dollars in research and testing are a total loss.
The Pleasant is a Class AA river, the most protected water quality category. It is one of very few U.S. rivers to still have a native Atlantic salmon population. But salmon are not the only species of interest. A smelt fishery had been in full swing just beyond the hatchery in the river’s estuary. Due to end on March 31, the fishery was closed two days early when oil showed up on the nets. Gill nets are used to harvest up to 500 pounds in a single night during the limited season.
At this time of year, the smelt spawn on the gravel beds in the river. “We have the last remaining commercial net fishery for smelt on the U.S. East Coast. Historically, it ranged from the Chesapeake Bay,” says Shaw. “At this location we have records of commercial smelt operations dating back to the 1760s and there is no reason that they should not continue.”
Since the spill, biologists are keeping a careful eye on the millions of incubating eggs, which appear healthy and are hatching at this time
Coverage of Washington County is made possible by a grant from the Eaton Foundation.
Leslie Bowman is a freelance writer and photographer living in Trescott.