Lest we forget! November 4, Day 123 of the Disaster on the Tuscarawas

On the evening of July 5th, Nobel Oil spilled approx 1000 gallons of oil into the Tuscarawas River while operating at the P-C Sales transfer facility on Snyder rd. The morning of July 6, Opa reported to Summit Metro Parks the presence of an oily substance at Wolf Creek bridge. Later that day OEPA was notified. Opa returned to the river on July 8th intending to fish but was instead faced with the disaster before him as soon as he passed the foot bridge where Barberton fire department had placed a containment boom. At this point, Opa began documenting with video, pictures and posts here all he was witnessing. Sometime on July 10th, local authorities finally made a public admission of the spill…guess they were waiting on a grant.

Later that same day crews came to reposition the boom at the bridge and install one and the storm sewer. July 11, ODNR went into the water with kayaks and floated down stream from Wolf Creek. This was the first time anyone put eyes on the river on this section down to Van Buren besides Opa, to the best of our knowledge, as PPG would not allow crews to access the river from their roads along this mile or so stretch. No one challenged that…how many animals died because of this Failure?!

We continue to monitor and report the presence of oil following the approx three week cleanup effort and not until Kelly Kennedy and 19News started asking the OEPA did they come out to inspect and indeed found more oil in the soil under the river and requested additional cleanup. We still see the presence of oil especially in not easily accessed locations however the OEPA has informed us that they will take no further action.

To date, nothing that we know of has been done to prevent a similar or worse spill from happening here. No actions to prevent access to the river in the case of an emergency, nothing to slow addition of pollutants into the river. And, no sense that this is a wake-up call to everyone that we are not much better at protecting our waterways than a hundred years ago.

Thank You Jim Ballard for allowing the use of your music “When The Well Run Dry” to highlight this #disasteronthetuscarawas please listen to the words of the song as you watch the video.

To read all about the Disaster on the Tuscarawas, you can read the whole story from the beginning starting here.