Conno Creek reopened, safe for recreation
The Connoquenessing Creek is once again ready for anglers and floaters after a minor oil spill closed two Allegheny Aquatic Alliance boat launches in September.
John Myers of Professional Enterprises Inc. in Karns City, who was hired to clean the creek after oil from the remediation of the former Armco Plant 2 site in Butler spilled into the creek, announced on Tuesday that all but one of his oil booms have been removed from the waterway.
“You can get back on the creek and have fun,” Myers said.
Several booms containing oil-absorbing pads were placed on the creek from Butler to just past the Alliance launch on Eckstein Road in Forward Township immediately after the spill on Sept. 8.
The Eckstein and Renfrew canoe launches were closed at that time and have remained closed to soak up as much oil as possible.
Myers said he estimates that only about 100 gallons of oil leaked into the creek and that about 1,000 gallons of water in the creek was affected.
Myers workers changed the pads each week and observed the creek after a rain to look for puddles of oil.
When the pads were coming up clean, Myers asked the state Department of Environmental Protection for a meeting to ask that the booms be removed and the oil-removal project deemed complete.
DEP officials agreed that the cleanup is complete and was successful.
“This was pretty much a minor spill,” Myers said.
The tanks holding contaminated oil — which did not leak into the creek — were drained by Myers’ crews and the containers wrapped in heavy plastic.
Myers is now waiting for the results of an analysis of the contaminated oil.
“Once we get the results back from the samples, we will apply to place the containers in a landfill,” he said.
Myers left one boom at the outflow at the old Plant 2 site on Bantam Avenue, just to be cautious.
Tom Decker, spokesman for the DEP’s Northwestern office, said on Tuesday that the pollution incident remains under investigation.
“No fish or other aquatic life were found to be harmed or killed,” Decker said.
CERTA, the Cincinnati company that owns the site and is cleaning it up for future industrial uses, was issued a notice of violation by the DEP a few weeks after the spill.
Decker did not offer a reply on whether CERTA received civil penalties for the spill, which were threatened in the DEP notice.
Jake Bamberger, co-owner of CERTA, did not answer calls from the Eagle on Tuesday afternoon.
