Delaware River Oil Oozes, Mess Gets Murkier

When the Greek tanker Athos I began leaking heavy Venezuelan crude into the river the night of Nov. 26, it appeared to be a manageable spill confined to a riverside terminal -- just 30,000 gallons, according to estimates.

But authorities now warn that it could be as much as 473,500 gallons, a gooey mess that has spread to 70 miles of shoreline across three states.

Investigators are trying to determine whether a gash and a puncture in the ship's hull were caused by an 11-ton, 13-foot-wide propeller that fell off a dredge owned by the Army Corps of Engineers in April and was left on the river bottom.

The muck has killed birds, fish and turtles. It has shut down a nuclear plant and threatened a dozen freshwater streams and tributaries. It has slid past a pristine nature reserve and spread to within three miles of drinking water intakes for Philadelphia and southern New Jersey.

And it was still oozing Friday, leaving a 4-foot-high black smear along the stone seawall that keeps the Delaware from flooding Ft. Mifflin, a historic Revolutionary War battlement. Stiff sea winds spread a sharp chemical odor across the freshwater tidal marshes that straddle Interstate 95.

The spill is not exactly the Exxon Valdez, which dumped nearly 11 million gallons in Alaska in 1989, but it could be the worst on the Delaware, surpassing the 300,000 gallons spilled by a tanker in 1989.

And it has surprised and shaken a region where most people are only vaguely aware of the massive refineries that dot the uninhabited, low marshlands just south of Philadelphia.

Tankers deliver a million barrels of crude each day to the refineries that produce 70% of the gasoline sold in the Northeast, according to the local maritime exchange.

More than a thousand workers were along the river Friday, putting down 94,000 feet of boom, absorbent floating barriers used to contain the slick. Despite all efforts, the environmental and economic damages probably will be in the millions, authorities said. The Delaware Bay is home to thousands of migratory shorebirds and the world's largest population of horseshoe crabs.