Take Me to The River: From George Washington to the Oil Spill, Going with the Flow on the Delaware River

AMC Outdoors, March 2005

On November 26, 2004, oil flooded the lower part of the Delaware River, disgorged from the bowels of the Greek oil tanker, Athos I. A sunken pipe lanced the tanker’s steel hull, just minutes away from its dock at a Citgo refinery in West Deptford, New Jersey. Two hundred and sixty-five thousand gallons of crude Venezuelan oil poured out and blackened 57 miles of the Delaware River shoreline, from north of Philadelphia to the Smyrna River in Delaware.

Since its “discovery” by Henry Hudson in 1609, the Delaware has survived many such blows: the disappearance of the Lenni Lenape Indians from its banks, invasions by the timber trade, steamboats, railroads, gun powder mills, paper mills, factories—and pollution from oil tankers. And throughout it all, thousands have played in its currents and along its banks, while thousands of others have relied on it for their living.

And, now, many are speaking up to protect it from further development and other threats. The lastest assault on the Delaware’s ecosystem coul have been worse. “If you were going to have an oil spill, this [was] the best time of year for it,” says Ed Levine, the Scientific Support Coordinator for NOAA assigned to the cleanup. “Cold weather makes the oil easier to pick up,” he explains. “Plus, bird populations are down this time of year. Plants are dying back and not taking nutrients out of the ground. And we’ve found no obvious fish kills.”

By comparison, a 300,000-gallon oil spill on the Delaware in 1989 suggests repercussions will last for years, not decades. While a final assessment and cleanup plan is still being made, current recovery efforts will be ongoing through spring.

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