Delaware River

The captain of a Greek tanker that spilled 420,000 gallons of heating oil into Narragansett Bay was arrested and charged with violating the Clean Water Act and the federal Refuse Act. Iakovas Georgudis surrendered and was charged in federal court in Providence, R.I., said U.S. Atty. Lincoln Almond. The charges were filed promptly in order to ensure that the captain would remain in the country. Each of the two counts carries up to a year in prison and $100,000 fine or double the actual damages, which the Coast Guard has estimated at $1.6 million.

PHILADELPHIA - For a man who lives on a pier that juts into the rapidly rising Delaware River, Cain Carducci was remarkably calm Monday afternoon. Carducci, 23, planned to spend the night inside his condominium on Pier 3, a former municipal produce pier on the Delaware. He was not overly worried that Hurricane Sandy, forecast as possibly the most destructive and treacherous storm in modern Philadelphia history, would propel the river's roiling gray waters into his living room. "This building is all steel and concrete," Carducci, a respiratory therapist, said as the river pitched and roared below his second-floor condo.

A tanker on Friday spilled about 1,000 gallons of oil into the Delaware River, the Coast Guard said. Unloading was stopped and floating booms were placed in the water around the ship. A private anti-pollution contractor also was called in to clean up the spill.

"I remember reading in my youth a small book ? 'The Life of Washington' ? and of all his struggles none fixed itself on my mind so indelibly as the crossing of the Delaware preceding the Battle of Trenton?" ? Abraham Lincoln, Feb. 21, 1861 George Washington was the Father of Our Country and our first president. Before he was president, he was Gen. George Washington, the commander in chief of the Continental Army and a wealthy landowner. He led America to a military victory over Great Britain ?

An oil tanker spilled about 150 gallons of oil into the Delaware River on Friday, the Coast Guard reported. Workers at the Sun Co. refinery dock noticed the spill as the 865-foot tanker Nike was unloading its cargo of light crude oil from Nigeria, officials said.

Whale watchers gathered on the banks of the Delaware River hoping to catch a glimpse of a beluga whale, thousands of miles from its Arctic home. The whale has been feeding on shad along a stretch of the river between New Jersey and Pennsylvania near the New Jersey capital of Trenton.

A tanker spilled 30,000 gallons of crude oil into the Delaware River between Philadelphia and southern New Jersey, creating a 20-mile-long slick that killed dozens of birds and threatened other wildlife, federal officials said Saturday. Private contractors were called in to skim oil from the surface of the water and put down thousands of feet of boom, a floating barrier used to contain the slick. U.S.

An injured right whale that took a wrong turn ended up in the Delaware River, swimming in slow circles as rescuers tried Sunday to steer it back toward the Atlantic. The young mammal, which may have been separated from its mother, strayed north into Delaware Bay instead of moving south for winter. The whale's head was bleeding from an apparent run-in with a boat during its 80-mile trek from the mouth of the bay at Lewes, Del., to Philadelphia, where it was first spotted Saturday.

Like a mutant blob in a bad horror movie, an oil slick first thought to be relatively small has grown bigger and more menacing over the past week, oozing its way down both banks of the Delaware River. 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.

WAS I ever surprised to see the article on the Delaware River in Sunday's paper ["Where American History Was Born," June 19]. This is the first time I have ever seen Milford, N.J., or Upper Black Eddy, Pa., written up in a newspaper other than a local. Thanks for the nostalgia. Ted Creveling Valinda, CA

This George Washington could not make it across the Delaware River. Ronald Rinaldi III was prepared to play the role of the military leader whose 1776 Christmas night crossing led to a rout of British-led forces in Trenton and revived the downtrodden Continental forces. Rinaldi, 45, had taken part in every reenactment of the crossing since 1976. But this year, reenactors were done in by the river's strong currents.

I am a West L.A. native who lived in Westport, Conn., from 1992 to 1998 before returning to Southern California. While I'm a big fan of our roots in architectural Modernism here, especially the Case Study houses, I discovered a whole new world of gentle architecture and its graciously comfortable interiors that quickly embraced my creative soul. Some of my friends [back East] owned homes built before Washington was even thinking about crossing the Delaware River. Thus, when you ran the story of Laurence Mark's home on Mulholland Drive ["Cape Cod on Mulholland," Jan. 18]

As the Susquehanna River rose Wednesday night, 200,000 people were ordered to leave their homes near Wilkes-Barre in anticipation of cresting waters that threatened to top the city's levees this morning and pour into residential neighborhoods. The evacuation came after another day of torrential rain in the Northeast that left at least 12 people dead. Houses were lifted from their foundations, bridges washed away and terrified residents awaited rescue on their rooftops.

WAS I ever surprised to see the article on the Delaware River in Sunday's paper ["Where American History Was Born," June 19]. This is the first time I have ever seen Milford, N.J., or Upper Black Eddy, Pa., written up in a newspaper other than a local. Thanks for the nostalgia. Ted Creveling Valinda, CA

In New Jersey, where I grew up, names such as Washington, Monroe, Mercer, Knox, Stockton and Morris are commonplace, found on street signs, municipal halls, schools and liquor stores. When you live in one of the 13 original colonies, the Revolution is part of the landscape, but for countless schoolchildren it's otherwise insignificant. Sometimes it takes the wisdom of age to appreciate history, to want to peer beyond the names to the events.

Whale watchers gathered on the banks of the Delaware River hoping to catch a glimpse of a beluga whale, thousands of miles from its Arctic home. The whale has been feeding on shad along a stretch of the river between New Jersey and Pennsylvania near the New Jersey capital of Trenton.

This George Washington could not make it across the Delaware River. Ronald Rinaldi III was prepared to play the role of the military leader whose 1776 Christmas night crossing led to a rout of British-led forces in Trenton and revived the downtrodden Continental forces. Rinaldi, 45, had taken part in every reenactment of the crossing since 1976. But this year, reenactors were done in by the river's strong currents.

Thousands of spectators gathered Saturday on the banks of the Delaware River to watch volunteers re-enact George Washington's historical crossing from Pennsylvania to New Jersey. About 200 participants in four 40-foot replica Durham boats crossed the river in the 41st re-enactment of Washington's 1776 crossing--a prelude to a surprise attack on enemy troops camped at Trenton, N.J., during the Revolutionary War.

A Greek tanker involved in a massive oil spill in the Delaware River headed out to sea Thursday after undergoing temporary repairs, a spokesman for the ship's operators said. Athos I, run by Tsakos Shipping & Trading, was bound for dry dock in Mobile, Ala., where the repair will be completed. The tanker's steel bottom had two rips that were patched by divers at a terminal in Morrisville, Pa., about 30 miles northeast of Philadelphia. The ship apparently hit a chunk of metal Nov. 26 as it prepared to dock at an oil terminal in Paulsboro, N.J. Tens of thousands of gallons of crude oil leaked, blackening the shoreline, killing wildlife, hampering shipping and causing environmental damage that could last for years.

A Greek tanker that spilled as much as half a million gallons of crude oil into the Delaware River last month apparently gashed its hull on a discarded pipe protruding from the river bottom, the Coast Guard said in Philadelphia. Sonar located the 15-foot, U-shaped pipe. Investigators found gouges on it and traces of paint that matched the ship.