An oil spill that happened in the Ohio River in Vanderburgh County back in March has been cleaned up and the Dept. of Natural Resources says you can hardly tell it happened. The well had been abandoned by Omega Energy Corporation of Arcadia, California, earlier this year. It had been on a lease with three other wells and was determined to be a possible environmental threat. After being notified of the threat on March 9th, division personnel put booms and pads in areas where they could clean up any residual oil in the water. The next step was to hire Gwaltney Drilling of Washington to do the cleanup and plug the wells. Indiana DNR Oil and Gas spokesman Herschel McDivitt says oil had spread out over a considerable distance. He noted that the Ohio was up at that time. But says, their contractor was able to contain it. Now the area is much as it was before the spill. McDivitt says with the time that has passed, it would be very difficult to determine that an oil spill of that size had occurred there. He says it’s is a perfect example of how the environmental fund can be used for cleanup and to prevent future contamination issues.
