 
|
|||||||||
              
|
Fish return after '88 oil spill, study says
Friday, October 09, 1998 By Marylynne Pitz, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
On Jan. 2, 1988, an oil storage tank in Floreffe collapsed, releasing 3.9 million gallons of diesel fuel.
Within hours, 750,000 gallons spread an oily, 4-inch-thick blanket across 23 miles of the Monongahela River and a similar black cover over 40 miles of the Ohio River.
Now, a study covering 110 miles of riverfront and paid for by fines from the company that owned the tank is finished, and environmental officials say it will help them manage wildlife throughout the area.
The disaster, one of the largest inland oil spills in U.S. history, caused boaters and fishermen to stay away from the Monongahela for years.
"Three or four years later, boaters refused to boat on the Ohio and Monongahela rivers," said Tom Proch, a regional aquatic biologist with the state Department of Environmental Protection. Boaters, Proch added, feared their craft would be covered in oil.
Ashland Oil Inc., which owned the tank, paid $1.25 million in fines for violating state laws and $2.75 million to settle damage claims to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Of that money, $1.75 million was earmarked for a detailed study of the fish and other wildlife that inhabit the Ohio, Allegheny and Monongahela rivers, as well as their habitats.
Officials from the state Department of Environmental Protection, the Pennsylvania Fish and Wildlife Commission and the Pennsylvania Game Commission say the study will help them to more effectively manage the Ohio River Basin and improve the habitats of fish and wildlife.
In addition to the Ohio, Monongahela and Allegheny rivers, the Ohio River Basin takes in the Conemaugh, Beaver and Kiskiminetas rivers.
Proch said yesterday the study gives the state "a baseline to evaluate the effects of spills in the future."
The study, which began in 1991, will allow the state to tell companies where to discharge in the river so the habitats of valuable fish and wildlife are undisturbed.
The good news is that fish that haven't been seen in the Ohio and Monongahela for 100 years are returning. Fish that have reappeared include bowfin, paddlefish, the channel darter, sauger and spotted bass.
John Arway, chief of the division of Environmental Services for the Pennsylvania Fish Commission, is excited by the return of the paddlefish to the Ohio and Allegheny rivers.
Just as coal miners use canaries in mines to warn them of dropping oxygen levels, conservationists use paddlefish as a sign of a river's cleanliness.
"The paddlefish are our canary. They need good quality water to live," Arway said.
The study required detailed mapping of 110 miles of riverfront. To map the rivers, two employees of Normandeau Associates, a Bedford, N.H.-based company, lived like a couple of characters out of a Mark Twain novel.
Greg Sermarini, a computer scientist, and Douglas Nieman, a fishery scientist, work out of Normandeau Associates' Spring City office in Chester County.
In 1993 and 1994, the two men mapped 47 miles of the Allegheny, 23 miles of the Monongahela and 40 miles of the Ohio River. Together, they filmed hours of videotape footage and classified it.
Sermarini used computer software to create maps that show the likely dwelling places of fish, such as the small-mouthed bass and fresh-water mussels. The information will allow state officials to improve habitats.
The study also included the use of a technology called Side Scan Sonar, which is the size of a stereo system and is often employed by treasure hunters.
In scanning the Allegheny, Monongahela and Ohio, the sonar revealed 50 pleasure boats and many cars that ended up underwater during the catastrophic flood of January 1996.
For a while, Proch joked, employees at the DEP thought they should get into the salvage business.
|
||||||||
