UNIFIED COMMAND
RI Dept of Environment Management
Penn Maritime
The Unified Command is issuing its final bulletin.
Key phone numbers for obtaining oil spill information are as follows:
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For General Information |
RI DEM |
222-4700 ext 2401 |
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Archive of Prior Bulletins (hit your browser's refresh button) |
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Fisheries Closure Area Rescinded: Today, the Department Of Environmental Management re-opened the last 180 acres of fishing grounds that were closed as a result of the July 5th Penn 460 Oil Spill. The closure had remained in place while clean-up operations continued.
Status of Spill and Clean-up: Contractors for Penn Maritime removed approximately 155 tons of contaminated beach sediment, which had not responded to active or passive removal techniques during the last three months. The beach sediments, a mixture of sand and cobble, were replaced with clean material and the beach profile was restored. The last containment boom was pulled out on Friday after several visits to the beach found no evidence of free oil.
In addition to the sediment the clean-up produced 13,044 gallons of decanted oil/water mixture and 116 tons of oil soaked absorbent material.
42 Canada Geese were rescued and sent to Tri-State Bird Rescue in Delaware for rehabilitation, 41 were subsequently released and one died. Five Mute Swans, which were too heavily oiled to clean, were euthanized on the first day of the spill.
Status of Assessment Activities: The natural resource damage assessment process will continue through the next several months. Representatives of the State of Rhode Island and the Federal government have met once, so far, to map out procedures to carry out the assessment of the spill's environmental impact and to decide whether any restoration might be needed. Further meetings will focus on the status of several shoreline and trawl studies DEM undertook during the spill as well as the feasibility of using computer models to help quantify water column injuries.