MARSHALL, Mich.
Volunteers and government officials scrambled yesterday to save geese and other wildlife damaged by an oil spill in a southern Michigan river as the Canadian company that owns the ruptured pipeline said the crude had been contained.
Enbridge Inc., based in Calgary, Alberta, said its focus was shifting to cleaning up the spilled oil in the Kalamazoo River, which it estimates at 820,000 gallons. The Environmental Protection Agency puts the total at more than 1 million gallons.
The oil is contained by boom and other devices that can keep it in place until vacuum equipment can suck it up, company spokesman Alan Roth said.
"It's been captured, it's not going anywhere," Roth said.
Company and federal officials say they don't believe the oil will reach Lake Michigan, where the Kalamazoo River empties about 80 miles from where the oil has been contained. But EPA officials say it could take a couple of months to clean up the spill, and the cause is under investigation.
Hundreds of workers and contractors were working on cleanup. Enbridge said it had recovered 100,800 gallons of oil so far and estimated that 420,000 gallons are in a holding area and will be pumped into tanks.
"No one is sugarcoating it," Roth said. "There's still a tremendous amount of work to do but good progress is being made."
Scientists fear the worse may be yet to come for fish in the river. Jay Wesley, a biologist with the state of Michigan, said the oil spill had killed fish in "very limited numbers" along the affected stretch.
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