Oil Spill Contaminates 3 Mile Section of the Des Plaines River – Chicago
The Associated Press is reporting that a holding tank at a Caterpillar facility in southwest suburban Chicago broke open , spilling around 65,000 gallons of oil sludge and contaminating the Des Plaines River, officials said.
Oil Spill in Chicago
Maggie Carson, a spokeswoman for the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency to the Associated Press in an e-mail that the substance was “Reported to be hydraulic and cutting oil” and that “It is being contained, and there is no evidence of a fish kill or harm to a fowl”.
Most of the oil spilled on land, but 6,000 gallons seeped into Des Plaines River water, U.S. Coast Guard petty officer William Mitchell said. He said the oil waste poses no risk to human health.
But “if there’s an animal in that 3-mile area, they definitely could be in trouble,” Mitchell said. The Coast Guard also said barge and boat traffic along the river had been stopped.
Peoria-based Caterpillar Inc., the world’s largest maker of mining and construction machinery, said in statement Sunday evening that, “an undetermined amount of waste oil” overflowed from a storage area at the company’s manufacturing facility in Joliet.
“Caterpillar has notified appropriate authorities about this overflow and the company immediately began corrective action when the overflow was discovered,” the statement said. “The company is coordinating efforts to contain and remediate this overflow.
State and federal EPA response teams, as well as teams from Caterpillar were working with local organizations to clean the area, Carson said. She said the focus on Sunday was containment and there was no estimate on how long it would take to clean the area.
Federal EPA spokeswoman Ginny Narsett says the cleanup will take at least a few days.
The U.S. Coast Guard is surrounding the contaminated water with a floating wall, Mitchell said. He said that two vacuum trucks on the scene would suck up the sludge.
The Joliet Police Department said it hadn’t ordered any evacuations in the area and that it wasn’t aware of any ordered by other law enforcement agencies.
“Caterpillar is committed to being a responsible environmental steward and community partner, and the company will investigate the cause of this incident and will put in place management practices that minimize the potential for future occurrences,” the company said in a statement.
