By Al Frank
The Star-Ledger (Newark, New Jersey)
Copyright 2007 Newark Morning Ledger Co.
All Rights Reserved
A corroded underground home heating oil tank is suspected as the source of a 200-gallon spill into Lake Parsippany yesterday.
While an oily sheen coated much of the surface of the 168-acre lake, Parsippany Mayor Michael Luther said most of the oil was confined to a cove at the foot of Everett Road.
“We’re lucky the first responders did a tremendous job in containing what would could have been an environmental disaster for the community,” Luther said.
Using boats provided by Parsippany Rescue and Recovery, volunteers from Rockaway Neck Fire District 5 sealed the cove with containment booms before a state Department of Environmental Protection contractor arrived on the scene, said Eric Hubner, township emergency management coordinator.
“The township guys did a really good job getting everything orchestrated,” said Bill Sempier, president of the Lake Parsippany Property Owners Association, which manages the lake.
He said the cleanup should be finished today, although booms may remain for awhile longer at the mouth of the cove as a precaution.
“I think the worst thing that will happen is a delay of fish stocking, but that’s it,” Sempier said.
The spill came just one week before the state was to deliver a truckload of trout and bass for fishing season, which opens in two weeks.
Sempier said a decision on whether to postpone the release will await word from fish and wildlife officials after their offices reopen today. Otherwise, he said the summer season will be unaffected.
Although hemmed in by nearby Routes 80 and 287, the man-made lake is an almost bucolic refuge for residents who live in the 2,100 homes that surround it.
Luther said a ruptured home heating oil tank was suspected after crews checked catch basins all the way to Route 80 and found no oil residues.
An accident on the highway was the source of the lake’s last major pollution incident about two years ago “but it wasn’t anywhere near this,” Sempier said.
Andy Steinberg, who lives on the cove, said he first smelled the kerosene-like odor when he let his dog out yesterday morning. “I didn’t think much of it,” he said. But after returning from an errand he took a closer look, saw the sheen and called Sempier.
Last night, oil skimmed from the cove was being pumped into a 3,000-gallon tanker.
Township police accompanied Morris County HazMat and state Department of Environmental Protection investigators as they began a canvass of the neighborhood to check oil tanks for water infiltration.