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Criminal investigation into oil in Cayuga Creek

Posted at 6:30 PM, Jul 26, 2016
and last updated 2016-07-27 14:43:22-04

Just a week after the state DEC began looking into how 500 gallons of oil ended up in the Cayuga Creek, a criminal investigation is now underway.

On July 19, a group of kayakers spotted the brown substance floating atop the waterway. The Department of Environmental Conservation says someone deliberately dumped hundreds of gallons of waste oil in the creek.

Sources with the City of Niagara Falls tell 7 Eyewitness News two business are currently part of the probe, something the DEC would neither confirm nor deny because the information is part of an ongoing investigation.

“It’s not a major oil spill like the Gulf like what we've seen with the Exxon or in Alaska,” Jill Jedlicka, Executive Director with the Buffalo Niagara Riverkeepers told 7 Eyewitness News.

“It is not at that scale but because Cayuga Creek is already an impaired system, it already has suffered decades of abuse any little assault like this is going to have a localized yet impact."