State of emergency declared as 800,000 gallons of leaked oil begins flowing through Kalamazoo County

[Occulus]

AUGUSTA — Kalamazoo County officials declared a state of emergency Tuesday afternoon as more than 800,000 gallons of oil released into a creek began making its way downstream in the Kalamazoo River.

“I just came from Fort Custer and you can smell it now,” Kalamazoo County Undersheriff Pali Matyas said. “... It’s all rolling downhill and there are a lot of complications.”

Matyas said police, local fire departments and local hazardous-materials companies are working to set up booms to trap the crude oil but workers are not able to use their trucks to remove oil from the water because high water levels have made the areas inaccessible to the vehicles.

“We’re racing against time here too because the weather is supposed to get pretty bad tomorrow,” Matyas said.

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Words fail me.

edit: if it gets that far, maybe they can set up booms in Kalamazoo proper. There are several points along the Kalamazoo River that are somewhat constrained in channels at bridges and the like.

Shitty thing to hope for, though. x(

[Occulus]

1. Map of the affected areas:

[MichiganVote]

2. Son works in Battle Creek. Smell is very very strong.

[knitter4democracy]

8. Smelled it when I woke up this morning.

That was different. We usually just smell the cereal when they burn a batch.

It was awful to see in driving past the river today.

[TheModernTerrorist]

3. Can someone calm me down...

and tell me I'm NOT overreacting? I currently live overseas and I'm seriously so fucking depressed and tired of hearing news like this. Can anyone in Michigan calm me down and tell me that this will be taken care of properly and it won't reach Lake Michigan and that I'm being irrational?

Please?

[knitter4democracy]

6. We're doing everything possible to keep that from happening.

I live here in Battle Creek (and yes, the smell is strong), and I've seen all kinds of response, mostly by state DNR folks. Helicopters tracing the river, looking for where the oil is; booms; pipes siphoning oil off; all of it.

[TheModernTerrorist]

10. Thank you!

This is what I woke up to today. I'm not exactly a doomsayer or anything like that, but living in Japan I've grown to really really treasure Michigan's waterways. I've asked a lot of my students about their water here and was sorta shocked to find that no one... NO ONE swims in lakes here. I then realized that a lot of us take what we have in Michigan for granted.

I'm tired of waking up to bad news everyday :-/

[Canuckistanian]

4. Michigan?

It's flowing into Lake Michigan?

[jberryhill]

5. A b c d e f g h...

I spilled a gal.
In Kalamazoo.
Don't want to boast,
but I know it's the most
spilled in Kalamazoo zoo zoo zoo...

[knitter4democracy]

7. The spill was in Marshall, actually.

The Kalamazoo river's a long one. :)

[knitter4democracy]

9. Spill started in Calhoun County. They're trying to clean it up.

They've already laid booms down in areas in Calhoun County, but with the massive rains we've had lately, the water current is just too high and strong.

http://www.battlecreekenquirer.com/article/20100727/NEWS01/307270030/Granholm-criticizes-company-as-oil-heads-west
The Enquirer is doing a good job on reporting this.

I saw the governor's helicopter today when my kids and I were leaving Fort Custer (swam in one of the inland lakes not connected to the river). Whenever we passed the river, we saw the oil. It's definitely bad.