Slick Talkers About Bayou Oil Spills

[XLFD]

On the afternoon of May 5, 2025, the Mason County Press ran a story about the recovery of a boat that sank back in February just east of Thompson's Marina.  The original story included a picture of a crane lifting the boat out of the water and leaving behind oily residues, evidenced by the prismatic sheen in the water surrounding the recovered boat as it was being hoisted.  The story itself mentioned nothing about any significant mitigation of that spill problem, rather it inferred there was nothing amiss.  

That evening at a meeting of the Ludington City Council, City Manager Katilyn Aldritch would admit there were some issues involved with the extrication of the vessel; her quote:

"... So the vessel was recovered today. And we had some absorbent pads out there. I think you've all seen some notices over the last few months where oil has leaked slowly from the vessel and oil pads, and has absorbed that over time. The Coast Guard in Eagle had indicated that there was not any significant contaminants on the vessel anymore. We shouldn't have any issues when removing the vessel. Vessel was halfway out of the water and it started leaking a significant amount of oil today. So, the US Coast Guard delivered an oil boom from Manistee this afternoon to help contain that spill. And the vessel is officially out of the water. So, the contamination issue is under control and the vessel is officially removed; so, we are happy to have that out of the water and have that taken care of, and looking forward to the oil boom doing its job."

Magically, the story from the MCP would change the very next day (May 6th), and it would now relate a lot more information about the spill that happened during the exercise courtesy of LPD Chief Chris Jones who would say: 

"During the recovery operations, a leak of oil and/or fuel was observed coming from the vessel, which was beyond the capacity of the absorbent materials on hand.  The USCG Station Manistee provided oil containment boom, which was deployed to absorb and contain the leaked fluid. Environmental safety remains a top priority, and the deployment helped minimize the spread of the substance within the waterway.  The source of the oil and fuel leak has since been removed from the water. However, the containment boom will remain in place for several days to ensure that any residual fluids are fully absorbed and do not pose a risk to the local ecosystem.”

The oil containment boom was nowhere to be seen later that date, and a local fisherman notified us that there was still a lot of oil residue on the surface of the bayou area and the inlet where the leak occurred.  This report was confirmed this morning, with oil sheen being seen across the bayou from where the leak happened:

As the winds and currents have primarily come from the west and northwest, docks on the southern part of the bayou have had oil residue accumulations:

Docks on the south bayou that are tied up and haven't housed a boat since last year house evidence that the spill on Monday was not contained within a boom that was probably removed well before the several days our police chief said it would be:

  

This continues down the length of the bayou on the south side, even when you look down on it from Madison Street from the incoming sanitary storm sewers; the currents and winds actually push the oil sheen into the outfall pipe:

Thus, if we are to accept either our city manager's account that stated the contamination issue was under control, our police chief's account that the residual fluids are fully absorbed and do not pose a risk to the local ecosystem, or the MCP (More City Propaganda) original account that assured us there wasn't any issues at all, we would be fooling ourselves. 

These people will be doing and saying whatever they feel they can get away with to suggest they didn't mar the PM Lake ecosystem, just as they did during the nearly one million gallons of untreated wastewater they intentionally pumped into it on April 7th, hundreds of thousands of those gallons in this general area.   One last thought.  If the half dozen private marinas in the bayou area that make their living off of that part of Pere Marquette Lake included either one of the city's two public marinas, do you think they would have been satisfied with leaving behind oil filled slips in their wake?  

[Daniel Jensen]

I find it quite fitting.. ever since the Harbor View Marina scandal involving The Michigan Waterways Commission and the DNR was recently brought back to the forefront of the Ludington City Council.. along with FOIA requests about that and other lingering issues.. the citizens of Ludington are not able to find recent recordings of those meetings on their site.. or YouTube.. just Facebook. Last recorded meeting on YouTube video was February 24 2025. Those of us who don't have a FB account can't share then to other platforms. How convenient!!!!!