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North Shore Clean-Up Continues Oil Spill Affects 25 Miles of Long Island Beach Believed to Come from a Barge Out of Connecticut Clean-Up Teams Expected to Work Through Mid-week

(WCBS) (WEST MEADOW BEACH) 2001/03/26 08:15:00 US/Eastern Crews have cleaned about 15 miles of Long Island beaches affected by a Friday morning oil spill along the North Shore. CBS 2's Paul Fleuranges reports.

Clad in protective gear, contractors hired to clean the North Shore's beaches of oil went about thier task over the weekend, gathering up and bagging globlets of the number six grade fuel oil that began washing up on the beach early Friday morning.

About 25 miles of beach are affected by the spill, officials say. The amount of oil spilled isn't known.

West Meadow Beach, eastern Port Jefferson Harbor, Cedar Beach and Wading River are the areas most impacted by the spill.

While in some places hardly any oil can been seen, in others its everywhere. The source of the oil is believed to be a barge out of Connecticut. Crew members discovered a six inch hole in a cargo tank after it was towed across Long Island Sound this past Tuesday. Tests are pending to confirm if the oil came from the barge.

Coast Guard officials say the clean-up so far has produced five 20-yard-long containers of waste and has cost 61,000 and nearly 3,000 man-hours of cleanup.

"Any spill is critically important for this area, the beaches are absolutley beautiful," said Capt. David Pekoske of the U.S. Coast Guard. "Our goal is to make sure we rerturn them to the conditions they were before the spill. In terms of overall size of the spill, its no slick its just globs and its not a large spill."

The cleanup is expected to continue until mid-week.

Despite the shore's fragile ecosystem of shoreline and wetlands, the Environmental Conservation Department says the impact on the environment has not been substantial.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife officials say five birds are dead and about 25 different species have been affected by the oil spill, the Coast Guard reports.

-- K (infosurf@yahoo.com), March 26, 2001