Oil Spill: Community Prevention Effort

Oil seepage. KEPO and volunteers are doing everything they can to prevent more diesel oil from leaking down the Suzanne River from Chateauguay. They filled hundreds of sandbags this morning. Tyler Moulton is the Environmental Projects Coordinator for Aquatic Habitats at KEPO:

“We are building a couple of what are called underflow dams at the border between Kahnawake and Chateauguay on the Suzanne River, at the corner of Industrial Boulevard and Ford. What we’re doing is, we’re building these dams so they basically allow water to pass through at the bottom of the dams and then pipes are angled such that, they are only taking water way below the surface and that’s going to trap anything floating including diesel on the upstream side.”

Moulton says there was a big rush because of the very warm temperatures. He says oil has not leaked in to the water in quite a while, possibly since Feb 2^nd, but this is now coming from areas along the banks and in the reeds, and is being dislodged because of the melting ice.