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Crews Collect 12,000 Gallons of Oil in Spill

Posted on: Sunday, 12 March 2006, 15:00 CST

By Beth Daley, The Boston Globe

Mar. 11--Crews spent a third day yesterday vacuuming up thick concentrations of fuel from the third and worst oil spill off Chelsea since Christmas, frustrating local efforts to clean Chelsea River, one of the dirtiest tributaries feeding Boston Harbor.

By last night, cleanup crews had collected more than 12,000 gallons of high-sulfur diesel oil that leaked out of a pipe at an Irving Oil pier in Revere on Wednesday. State environmental officials said yesterday that about 19,000 gallons of the red-tinged fuel, often used in construction vehicles and for home heating, spilled into Chelsea River before the pipe was sealed.

The amount spilled was more than 12 times larger than the 1,500 gallons officials said had spilled Wednesday. Residents in Chelsea were unaware of the large size of the spill yesterday, largely because the Coast Guard and state environmental officials did not alert them to it.

"I am livid," said Roseann Bongiovanni, a city councilor and director of the Chelsea Greenspace & Recreation Committee. "If this were Buzzards Bay, this would never happen. Are the pipes old? What is going on that this is happening so frequently here?"

Coast Guard officials yesterday said they were so engrossed in the cleanup that they did not realize the growing size and significance of the spill until early yesterday. State Department of Environmental Protection officials said the same.

"It always seems it's a tiny spill, and then we find out days later it was more serious than we thought," said Bruce Berman, a spokesman for the advocacy group Save the Harbor/Save The Bay.

While Coast Guard officials received phone calls of injured wildlife yesterday, they found no evidence of any along the shore or in the water, said Coast Guard Lieutenant Greg Callaghan. Environmentalists are particularly worried about harbor porpoises that are making their annual foray into Chelsea River and other nearby waterways, such as the Mystic River and Island End River.

Shortly after the spill Wednesday afternoon, the smell became so pungent that officials at the Mary C. Burke Elementary School complex shut off their intake air valves and canceled outdoor activities. Yesterday, the stench was still so powerful that commuter rail engineer Alan MacMillan smelled it on train trips past the site.

Irving Oil officials said yesterday they are doing everything they can to contain and clean the spill from a pipeline they share with Global Petroleum. Irving was performing maintenance on the pipe when Global pumped oil through it. Global officials did not return a phone call.

Oil spills are nothing new to Chelsea River and nearby waterways, even though local activists and officials are attempting to restore the water system. The Chelsea waterfront is heavily industrialized with almost constant tanker traffic, and dozens of storage tanks line its shores.

Coast Guard officials said there have been at least a dozen spills in the area in the last two years.

Since Christmas, there have been three large spills off Chelsea: In December, an estimated 3,500 gallons was released at the mouth of Chelsea River. In January, an estimated 10,000 gallons of fuel spilled in Island End River.

The timing and size of the spills is frustrating local activists and officials who have worked hard in recent years to clean the waterways. Two years ago, the six-year-old Chelsea Creek Restoration Partnership restored the Condor Street Urban Wild park that borders the river and today holds youth programs on the river. The partnership is also working to restore a half-acre salt marsh on Mill Creek, a tributary of Chelsea River, sometimes called Chelsea Creek.

Local activists said yesterday that the many spills should force the Coast Guard or state officials to look at the oil industry infrastructure around Chelsea. But state and federal officials said that checks do occur and that these spills are not related or do not point to a systemic problem.

"We are committed to restoring the river as much as we can, and with every oil spill there is a more cumulative impact. . . . Damage is being done," said Stacey Chacker, a member of the Chelsea Creek Restoration Partnership.

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Source: The Boston Globe

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