Allan Appel Photo
English Station looking north from the Mill River Bridge over Chapel Street.
Despite the continued alarming deployment of booms around English Station, and a fleet of trucks from engineering labs and U.S. Coast Guard rapid-response trailers parked on Grand Avenue for days, it may not be as bad as it looks.
At least that’s the hope, and the word from U.S. Coast Guard Public Affairs Officer Martin Betts.
He reported on Thursday that since the boom was deployed in mid-September after discovery of an oil spill at the riverfront property, “we have had one unrecoverable sheen show inside the boom. The sheen naturally dissipated.”
Click here for a previous story on the original deployment of 3,100 feet of boom in response to a call to the Coast Guard by staffers at the state Department of Energy and the Environment about potential leakage from the defunct English Station plant into the Mill River.
Coast Guard trailer/lab parked, looking east on Grand.
Betts was at pains to point out that “we are in the assessment phase.” He said his team is testing products in corroding barrels and other containers on the English Station property “to understand what exactly exists on site and to safely plan the way forward.”
Any plans for remediation and further risk management will depend on what products are found, he added.