Delaware River Update Oil Spill Update

The Coast Guard, state and local agencies as well as contracted environmental agencies continued the unified effort to cleanup and investigate Friday night's oil spill in the Delaware River. Limited traffic is being permitted to transit the security zone on a case by case bases. Protective barriers will be in place as needed to ensure the oiled areas around the vessel are not spread during the vessel's movement. Daily over-flights and boat crews will monitor the channel for further oil. The vessels will be cleaned after they transit the impacted area to limit the spread of the oil. An additional 170 workers will be added to the efforts bringing the total to 400 people involved in the clean up. Crews have recovered thousands of gallons of oil and oil water mixtures. Multiple skimmer vessels are on the river continuing to pick up floating oil. Clean up crews along the shoreline are using 37,000 feet of protective boom, absorbent pads, and vacuum trucks to remove the spilled materials. The recovered materials are being taken to approved facilities for disposal. The affected area of the spill now extends from just north of the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge to the Commodore Barry Bridge. The spill continues to affect wildlife along the river. Wildlife experts from Tri State Bird Rescue, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife and New Jersey and Pennsylvania state wildlife agencies are working diligently to retrieve and treat oiled wildlife. People who see affected wildlife are asked not to approach them, and should call the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge at 215-365-1558. A Salvage plan for the ships cargo was approved this afternoon. The ship will remove oil from the affected cargo hold into barges. The vessel will than be moved to the CITGO facility to offload the unaffected cargo. The owners will proceed with plans to repair the damaged hull.