Officials Hope Waterways Affected By Enbridge Oil Spill Will Be Open This Summer

Photo By: EPA/August 5, 2010

Robb Westaby FOX 17 News Web Producer

9:30 a.m. EDT, April 29, 2011
CALHOUN COUNTY—

Talmadge Creek and the Kalamazoo River have been off limits to human contact since the Enbridge oil spill in 2010, but there is hope the ban can be lifted sometime this summer.    

“We want to re-open the creek, river and  impacted areas as soon as possible," said James Rutherford of the Calhoun County Public Health Department in a Friday release. "But these decisions will be based on data and with health and safety concerns the number one priority.”

All recreational activities, including boating, swimming, and fishing, and agricultural use on Talmadge Creek and the Kalamazoo River in Calhoun County have been prohibited since the spill.

Evaluations will be made by the federal Environmental Protection Agency and the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, the first of which is expected to be complete by early June.

Nearly a million gallons of crude oil spilled into Talmadge Creek, which feeds the Kalamazoo River. Hundreds of residents were temporarily displaced, some permanently.