HALE EDDY, NY — According to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), an environmental contractor last week began using a product called Micro-Blaze on the location where four locomotives and 12 other cars derailed on August 9, spilling about 4,400 gallons of fuel oil.

A statement from the DEC says the product is approved by the Environmental Protection Agency and is a “liquid formulation of several microbial strains, surfactants and nutrients designed to digest organics and hydrocarbons in soil and water as well as control odors.”

The cleanup effort also involves the excavation of a three-foot-wide and four-foot-deep trench about 115 feet long in the location where the locomotives leaked the fuel. Some 65 tons of contaminated soil will be removed and sent to a landfill for disposal.

There are no restrictions currently on the use of the West Branch outside of the immediate area that has been boomed off. The statement said,” The area where the backwater meets the West Branch has been completely boomed off. A slight sheen is visible on the river near the accident site and under the Hale Eddy Road bridge.”

River of warm water

Meanwhile. the river has been negatively impacted in several other ways this summer according to Jeff Skelding, executive director of Friends of the Upper Delaware. He wrote, “The river was forced to endure dangerously low water releases all summer long. The release levels were based, in part, on long-term weather forecasting that predicted dry conditions. This placed enormous stress on the cold-water ecosystem through the height of the UDR [Upper Delaware River] recreational season.

“But the weather that was NOT predicted was right before our eyes—the torrential rains of late July and August—which raises serious questions about the accuracy of weather forecasting beyond the very near term.

“The full and spilling reservoirs now make downstream residents and communities highly vulnerable to flooding if the storms continue to come.

“And from a habitat perspective, hot surface water baked by the sun in the reservoirs is now spilling over the dams and, even with maximum releases, we’re seeing unusually warm water temperatures on the upper West Branch and the upper East Branch, which threatens the health of the cold water ecosystem and cripples the river-based economy it supports. We urge everyone to exercise extreme caution during these high-water conditions, and we advise anglers not to fish the river where water temperatures are too high.

In a reference to the Flexible Flow Management Program (FFMP), which determines the amount of water released from the New York City reservoirs into the river system, he further wrote, “The summer of 2018 points to the urgent need for the Decree Parties to bear down on some of the toughest issues left on the drawing board last fall when the new FFMP was adopted. Among them is the efficacy of weather forecasting and the reservoir management decisions that are based on that forecasting. Time and time again, these determinations unnecessarily cause harm to the Upper Delaware River and the people and communities that rely on it for their livelihoods.”