Ohio EPA says additional orange material in Vienna creek is not oil

Staff report

VIENNA

The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency has checked into concerns by residents living downstream of the Kleese Development oil spill and determined that an orange material found in the creek is “natural creek scum, foam and iron bacteria sheen along stagnant spots on the bank.”

The residents were concerned that the orange-colored material they spotted along Little Yankee Run just east of the identified spill location could be oil, but it is not, said Heidi Griesmer, spokeswoman for the Ohio EPA.

She said the area has “high dissolved iron,” which has an orange, rusty color.

The Ohio EPA said April 3 that it felt it had contained the oil spill from Kleese’s brine injection facilities on Sodom-Hutchings Road to wetlands just east of the Kleese facilities, 3,000 feet down a tributary of Little Yankee Run and two ponds.

The portion of the creek where the orange material was found around Thursday is east of there.

The EPA said about 2,000 gallons of “light waste oil” from the Kleese site escaped into the wetlands and stream through a storm tile on the Kleese site.

Griesmer said the contractor hired by Kleese continued to work through the weekend to clean up oil, and there appears to be “no free product present in the creek.” She said there has been no indication that any oil went beyond the initial containment area.

Local activist John Williams raised the issue last week, emailing photographs of the material to journalists.

Eric Heis, spokesman for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, said the investigation into the cause of the oil spill is continuing, although nearly complete, and the injection facility remains closed.