Diesel fuel from an overturned fuel tanker on a road near Pittsburgh has reached the Allegheny River. The accident happened Tuesday night along Route 28 near the borough of Etna, backing up traffic as crews worked to contain the spill.
About 2,000 gallons of diesel fuel spilled into Pine Creek below Route 28, according to the Department of Environmental Protection.
Captain Evan Clark of Three Rivers Waterkeeper, a local environmental watchdog, has been monitoring the river from a boat since the spill.
“When I got up into the creek right after the spill happened, you know, literally the whole surface of the creek was covered in oil,” Clark said.
“Everything reeked of diesel.”
Clark said he has seen oil condensing around the shoreline along the Allegheny River.
He saw a sheen around the Point, in Downtown Pittsburgh, five miles downstream, and oil in the channel behind Herr’s Island.
“There’s huge solid patches of oil as well as the scum that it kind of condenses into,” Clark said.
“One of my big concerns at this point is that there’s a lot of the birds out on the water, a lot of ducks that are both the ones that are here year-round and the migratory ones that are wintering here that are swimming in big patches of oil,.” he said.
Clark said his group received a report of a dead Canada goose near Heinz Field in Downtown Pittsburgh, but he doesn’t know if it is related to the spill. Clark said a wildlife rescue center has volunteered to help clean up any animals affected by the spill.
According to the DEP, a private clean-up contractor is on-site and working to clean up the spill, and downstream drinking water facilities have been notified.
