Kalamazoo River oil spill: ‘A nightmare in our own backyard’

Bridge outside of Calhoun County that is closed due the amount and harmful amounts of oil in the Kalamazoo River.

By Kallie Leonard
News Editor

An Enbridge Inc. pipeline malfunctioned Tuesday afternoon, spilling what is estimated to be more than 1 million gallons of oil into a Marshall-area creek that has now reached the Kalamazoo River.

In effort to stop the oil from spreading farther into the Kalamazoo River, oil-containment booms have been placed in Morrow Lake in Comstock, Mich., officials said today.

A press release from congressman Fred Upton stated Tuesday that he will remain in constant communication with the Environmental Protection Agency to monitor cleanup efforts and potential health hazards caused by the spill, which he called “a nightmare in our own backyard.”

“The mistakes and missteps that sabotaged the response and clean-up in the gulf cannot happen here in Southwest Michigan,” Upton said in the press release.

The consequences of a spill like this will take years and years to overcome, said Dr. Charles Ide, professor and director of Western Michigan University’s Environmental Research Center.

“The problem is that oil and water don’t like each other, so the oil will stick to anything else as it goes downstream,” Ide said. “So even if you make efforts to stop it, it’s still going to stick to the bottom of the river for years.”

According to Ide, the area in which the oil leaked was considered to be the uncontaminated part of the river that was free of Polychlorinated Biphenyls, or PCBs.

“It’s just terrible,” Ide said. “Those are the very clean areas [of the river] that are now contaminated with oil.”

Officials are now working to stop and contain the oil before it reaches Lake Michigan.

“The rain today will help the oil go downstream, which is not good,” Ide said.

Keep reading the Western Herald for updates on the oil spill.

Used retention barriers on site at the Kalamazoo river oil spill in Marshall County. Retention barriers that can no longer contain any oil are discarded, these retention barriers were of no use within 30 minutes of the leak. Thomas Doherty/Western Herald

Oil stains a pontoon boat on the site of the oil leak in Calhoun County. Thomas doherty/Western Herald

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Posted by kleonard on Jul 28 2010. Filed under Breaking, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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