At approximately 6:00 am CST on June 27, 2012, the NRC received a report of an unknown amount of oil near mile marker 287 on the Illinois River.  On Scene Coordinators (OSC) Anita Boseman and Jacob Hassan responded to NRC Report # 1015844 and arrived at the Ozinga Concrete facility (near mile marker 287) around 8:45 am CST.  After arriving on site, the OSCs determined that the spill had occurred on the Des Plaines River and not the Illinois River.  An initial assessment was performed along the west side of the river just north of the I-80 over pass where a significant amount of oil was observed by worker at the Ozinga Concrete facility.  A large amount of weathered oil was found between the barges moored at the Ozinga facility and at the neighboring Illinois Marine Towing facility with a sheen extending north to the Cass Street Bridge.

ERRS contractors were mobilized to the site and arrived on scene at approximately 12:30 PM to deploy containment and sorbent boom and to assist with investigation activities. EPA and the ERRS contractor initiated an investigation to identify the source of the release; however, no source could be identified. 

USEPA responded to a similar report of sheen in the same location during the winter of 2012. In order to help identify the product and possibly the source, OSCs Boseman and Hassan collected 2 samples of the sheen/oil, one sample will be sent to the United States Coast Guard (USCG) laboratory for fingerprint analysis, the other sample will be analyzed for oil categorization and disposal parameters at a local laboratory.  Also, EPA conducted interviews with workers from the Illinois Department of Transportation (bridge operators), Illinois Marine Towing, Ozinga Concrete and United States Army Corp of Engineers to assist in identifying a source.  All four entities indicated that there has been an increase in the amount of oil, they’ve observed on the river in the last 6 to 12 months.  Moreover, the oil has been seen as far north as the Rudy St Bridge in Joliet, IL.

Based on the initial site assessment, the initial response efforts focused on deploying containment boom around a permanently moored tug near the Illinois Marine Towing company and deploying sorbent boom in between the barges at the Ozinga property.  Due to the amount of oil and its location on the river, clean-up efforts began up river at the Illinois Marine Towing facility.  The ERRS contractor primarily used pom poms and absorbent boom to collect the oil contained within the boom.  Once the clean-up was completed at the Marine Towing facility, the response efforts moved to the Ozinga property to remove the oil trapped between the barges.  Using pom poms and sorbent boom the ERRS contractor was able to remove a significant amount of oil from between the barges. 

The ERRS contractor demobilized from the site on June 29th.  All the waste generated from the clean-up efforts was placed in a 20 yard roll-off box for disposal.  A was profile is being generated.

Overall, the clean-up efforts took two and a half days to complete.

Here is a list of actions to date:

- Identified oil collection and booming points
- Deployed containment and sorbent boom at the Illinois Marine Towing facility
- Deployed sorbent boom at the Ozinga Concrete facility
- Completed oil collection efforts
- Removal of contaminated sorbent boom and pom poms into roll-off box
- Took samples for DRO, GRO, waste profiling and fingerprinting
- Demobilization of ERRS from site