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Anglers irate as favorite spot ruined
'This makes me sick,' fisherman says
By VICTOR GRETO / The News Journal
11/30/2004
PAULSBORO, N.J. -- John Pearce didn't need the news in the papers or on the TV telling him it had happened to his river again.
When the laid-off boilermaker and avid fisherman left his home in Paulsboro - about 20 miles from Wilmington - to go after striped bass in the Delaware Bay on Saturday morning, he saw helicopters hovering overhead. Then he saw a large ship listing. And he knew.
"I've been living here for 35 years," he said Monday morning, staring off toward the Pennsylvania coastline from a sludgy, rocky, littered and oil-soaked New Jersey beach. "I knew it happened again. This river was just getting back on its feet."
The air was pungent with the smell of crude oil. From Pearce's vantage point in the back yard of a friend's home on the Delaware River, across the water from Philadelphia International Airport, streaks of oil dappled and smeared the water. In the sunlight, they were almost beautiful, like an abstract painting.
To Pearce's right, the Philadelphia skyline framed the long black hull of the Athos I tanker, alone in the water. Less than three days earlier, the tanker had spilled an estimated 30,000 gallons of crude oil into the Delaware River.
"When I was a kid, I used to swim in this water," said Pearce's friend, Kim Parker.
Pearce and Parker were sad, but they were also angry.
"We were just going to fish the stripers," Pearce said. "Not anymore."
Bob Kelly, a retired civil servant who has lived in nearby National Park, N.J., for more than 40 years, said he fished every day. Or used to.
"This makes me sick," he said. "I don't even want to come down here."
But he did - just like several other moist-eyed anglers, curious residents, duck hunters and deer hunters with rifles slung over their shoulders - to see the desecration of a river that held fond memories and absorbed much of their recreational time.
"This part of the river was clear when I was a kid," said 63-year-old Joe Rile, a volunteer firefighter for the Gibbstown and Repaupo, N.J., fire departments.
"We used to keep our duck boats out here all winter and no one would bother them. Ever," he said.
At a place called Floodgates, N.J., just north of the Commodore Barry Bridge, the southernmost extent of the spill, Rile stood and watched as oil leaked through the gate into a tributary of the river called the Ditch.
Turning from the river toward the Ditch, where some of the best fishing is to be had, Rile's wizened face was downcast. "There are 20 square miles of creeks back here," he said. "There are no ducks around here now. Back in the '50s, '60s and '70s, it was loaded with ducks."
Pearce said he's seen fistfights between fishermen over this area of the river. "People from Delaware, Pennsylvania all come up here to fish, it's so good," he said.
By 2 p.m., workers from Fleet Environmental Services of Bethel, Conn., were cleaning up at the Center Street Ramp at National Park, across from the Kvaerner Philadelphia Shipyard.
Most, in yellow slickers, raked in oil-drenched branches, litter and leaves, filled up black plastic bags, and threw the bags into the back of a van.
Others spread treated sand across patches of oil that had stuck fast to the ramp. One hoisted a string of specially treated nylon pompoms across part of the river near the dock, absorbing the oil, curling it inward toward shore, where other workers raked it into the bags.
Back at Floodgates, Pearce wondered out loud why it took so long to begin the cleanup. He also questioned why the area around Floodgates was not boomed, or protected with absorbent hoselike devices to keep the water clean, and why the best fishing place in the area looked like a sea of oil.
"This is a sportsman's paradise," he said. "They waited three days. That's six tides. I won't be fishing around here for a long time."
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[ 11-30-2004, 10:37 AM: Message edited by: NIGHTSTRIKES ]
'This makes me sick,' fisherman says
By VICTOR GRETO / The News Journal
11/30/2004
PAULSBORO, N.J. -- John Pearce didn't need the news in the papers or on the TV telling him it had happened to his river again.
When the laid-off boilermaker and avid fisherman left his home in Paulsboro - about 20 miles from Wilmington - to go after striped bass in the Delaware Bay on Saturday morning, he saw helicopters hovering overhead. Then he saw a large ship listing. And he knew.
"I've been living here for 35 years," he said Monday morning, staring off toward the Pennsylvania coastline from a sludgy, rocky, littered and oil-soaked New Jersey beach. "I knew it happened again. This river was just getting back on its feet."
The air was pungent with the smell of crude oil. From Pearce's vantage point in the back yard of a friend's home on the Delaware River, across the water from Philadelphia International Airport, streaks of oil dappled and smeared the water. In the sunlight, they were almost beautiful, like an abstract painting.
To Pearce's right, the Philadelphia skyline framed the long black hull of the Athos I tanker, alone in the water. Less than three days earlier, the tanker had spilled an estimated 30,000 gallons of crude oil into the Delaware River.
"When I was a kid, I used to swim in this water," said Pearce's friend, Kim Parker.
Pearce and Parker were sad, but they were also angry.
"We were just going to fish the stripers," Pearce said. "Not anymore."
Bob Kelly, a retired civil servant who has lived in nearby National Park, N.J., for more than 40 years, said he fished every day. Or used to.
"This makes me sick," he said. "I don't even want to come down here."
But he did - just like several other moist-eyed anglers, curious residents, duck hunters and deer hunters with rifles slung over their shoulders - to see the desecration of a river that held fond memories and absorbed much of their recreational time.
"This part of the river was clear when I was a kid," said 63-year-old Joe Rile, a volunteer firefighter for the Gibbstown and Repaupo, N.J., fire departments.
"We used to keep our duck boats out here all winter and no one would bother them. Ever," he said.
At a place called Floodgates, N.J., just north of the Commodore Barry Bridge, the southernmost extent of the spill, Rile stood and watched as oil leaked through the gate into a tributary of the river called the Ditch.
Turning from the river toward the Ditch, where some of the best fishing is to be had, Rile's wizened face was downcast. "There are 20 square miles of creeks back here," he said. "There are no ducks around here now. Back in the '50s, '60s and '70s, it was loaded with ducks."
Pearce said he's seen fistfights between fishermen over this area of the river. "People from Delaware, Pennsylvania all come up here to fish, it's so good," he said.
By 2 p.m., workers from Fleet Environmental Services of Bethel, Conn., were cleaning up at the Center Street Ramp at National Park, across from the Kvaerner Philadelphia Shipyard.
Most, in yellow slickers, raked in oil-drenched branches, litter and leaves, filled up black plastic bags, and threw the bags into the back of a van.
Others spread treated sand across patches of oil that had stuck fast to the ramp. One hoisted a string of specially treated nylon pompoms across part of the river near the dock, absorbing the oil, curling it inward toward shore, where other workers raked it into the bags.
Back at Floodgates, Pearce wondered out loud why it took so long to begin the cleanup. He also questioned why the area around Floodgates was not boomed, or protected with absorbent hoselike devices to keep the water clean, and why the best fishing place in the area looked like a sea of oil.
"This is a sportsman's paradise," he said. "They waited three days. That's six tides. I won't be fishing around here for a long time."
[ 11-30-2004, 10:37 AM: Message edited by: NIGHTSTRIKES ]
