Globs from an oil spill have made their way to a growing number of beaches in the Lewes area.
The Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control continues to assess and clean up an oil spill that came ashore yesterday at Broadkill Beach north of Lewes. The spill has now affected several southerly coastal locations, including Beach Plum Island near Cape Henlopen, Roosevelt Inlet, and Lewes, DNREC reported.
Some of the oil had been carried out into the Delaware Bay by last night’s high tide ended up on other beaches.
DNREC and the U.S. Coast Guard are using environmental contractors in the Broadkill area this morning to clean up as much oil as possible before another tide carried more oil out into the bay.
Cleanup operations were proceeding under a unified command between DNREC and the U.S. Coast Guard. More cleanup workers from Coast Guard contractors as well as DNREC staff were expected on the coast throughout the day.
Monday evening’s DNREC estimate of five barrels spilled may grow, but there is no further estimate on the spill’s size at this time, and the source for the oil has not been determined. A State Police helicopter was used in connections with efforts to track the spill.
The cleanup is expected to take days, as globs and pools of oil must be removed from beaches by hand.
DNREC Emergency Response has not seen any impact to wildlife, and also noted the vast numbers of shorebirds and horseshoe crabs that flock to the Bay coast each summer had departed on their annual migration.
DNREC Secretary Shawn Garvin asked that the public continue to report any oil sighted on- or offshore to DNREC’s toll-free environmental hotline (800-662-8802).
While the source of the oil spill was still unknown, DNREC provided samples of the oil to the U.S. Coast Guard to be analyzed for a “petroleum fingerprint” that might determine its origin. The oil was described by DNREC Emergency Response as a “heavy fuel oil” likely leaking from an operating vessel, not crude oil from the hold of a tanker.
Smaller tankers make their way up the Delaware Bay to refineries after supertankers undergo “lightering,” the process of transferring crude oil.
The spill, which spanned three-quarters of a mile of upper Delaware Bay coastline last evening, was estimated this morning to have spread to up to seven miles of beach this morning, with DNREC noting that tide had fragmented the oil from larger pooling to smaller-size speckling on the beaches. DNREC’s Emergency Response Team environmental staff gauged the size of the spill Monday after collaborating with Delaware State Police’s Aviation Unit on a reconnaissance flight over the upper Bay.
