http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20100827/NEWS02/708279893
Published August 27, 2010 in the Rutland Herald
Diesel fuel release poses challenge for Saturday river sweep
By Susan Smallheer
Staff Writer
SPRINGFIELD – For 10 years, Kelly Stettner has been the organizer and cheerleader for the Black River Action Team, a local volunteer effort to pull trash out of the Black River in downtown Springfield.
The event, set to mark 10 years of positive activism on Saturday, has been so successful it’s even expanded to Ludlow, where a local group of volunteers tackles the river in that town.
But the intentional and criminal release of more than 4,000 gallons of diesel fuel into the Black River earlier this month from the pumps at Black River Produce poses some challenges for the volunteer effort, Stettner said on Thursday.
“We’re going to try and make it fun. Informally, we’ve been calling it ‘The Diesel Edition,’ she said of the annual river sweep, which collects dozens of shopping carts and tires from the river most summers, in addition to some unusual objects. Last year, a crew of Boy Scouts found a case of wine in the river near Cavendish.
Stettner said while most of the diesel fuel has either been cleaned up by the environmental firm hired by Black River Produce, a slippery film remains on the shoreline of the river, particularly the first three miles downstream from the spill in North Springfield.
Stettner said that she was going to advise the volunteers to stay out of the river, and instead walk along the banks in that part of the river with a notebook, identifying items that will need to be removed next spring or summer.
Stettner said that in her monitoring of the river, she has noticed a “quiet” zone downstream from Black River Produce, where the birds and waterfowl have left the river.
“It used to be noisy from all the ducks, and you could see blue heron and lots of birds,” she said. She attributed the birds’ departure to the smell that overtook the area in the days immediately after the release.
Stettner said she hasn’t noticed any die-off in fish or other lack of activity underwater. But she said if you disturb the riverbed, “balloons” of petroleum come bubbling up.
Mark Curran, president of Black River Produce, said there had been great progress cleaning up the river in the past 2½ weeks. He said that a crew of employees from the company would be out Saturday with Stettner’s volunteers, with Black River Produce focusing on the three miles downstream from the release, as well as upstream.
“The cleanup has gone amazingly well,” he said, noting that after the first two or three days, there was little diesel fuel seen on the river.
“We have a crew, 15 people from Black River, that will be out Saturday,” said Curran. He said the crews would be out with spray bottles to help with the cleanup. “Our guys are pretty agile,” he said, adding that it was also an effort to eliminate any injuries by volunteers.
Curran said state and federal investigators were making progress in determining who was responsible for the intentional release.
“Four guys from the federal Environmental Protection Agency interviewed a lot of people,” Curran said.
The diesel fuel release was discovered on the morning of Aug. 8. It appears someone took the firm’s two diesel fuel hoses, laid them on the ground and turned on the pumps. Original estimates placed the lost fuel at about 1,000 gallons, but a closer check revealed about 4,000 gallons missing from the company’s fuel inventory.
Curran said that the town’s water source, the Gilman and Chapman well fields, were being tested weekly to look for any possible contamination from the release. The Gilman and Chapman wells are located on the other side of the Black River from Black River Produce, but in the same general area.
He said the town’s wells, which are the only source of drinking water in town, would be tested once a week for four weeks to rule out any contamination.
Curran said the environmental booms still on the river were not collecting any petroleum product at the moment, but simply collecting normal river debris for this time of year.
Area organizations and businesses support the volunteer effort, from cupcakes provided by Shaw’s bakery to the Connecticut River Watershed Council, which provides gloves for the volunteers, as well as the garbage bags.
Stettner is looking for additional grappling hooks, which are key to fishing the errant shopping carts out of the river.
Usually people use the hook off the plaza footbridge, pulling carts out the river, she said.
“If anybody wants to build me a grappling hook, I have the materials. I just need someone with the torches to do the fun part,” said Stettner.
People who are interested in volunteering should just show up sometime between 8 a.m. and noon Saturday at the Citizen’s Bank drive-up facility in the Springfield Shopping Plaza. People in Ludlow should show up at the gazebo in Veterans Park. Businesses have donated bagels and coffee, as well as lunch.
All volunteers will get a free Black River Action Team T-shirt, she said.
Stettner can be reached at blackrivercleanup@yahoo.com. Donations may be mailed to her home: 45 Coolidge Road, Springfield, VT 05156.
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