Nearly 500 gallons of oil floating atop the Cayuga Creek caught the attention of kayakers and eventually the attention of the DEC.
“Most of the effort has been focused on trying to determine how this material got in the creek,” Mayor of Niagara Falls Paul Dyster tells 7 Eyewitness News.
Dyster says right now an investigation is underway to determine how hundreds of gallons of what investigators believes is waste oil made its way through a storm water pipe, near the intersection of Niagara Falls Boulevard and Tuscarora Road, and into the Cayuga creek.
This is a spill investigators believe likely occurred between late Sunday evening and mid-day Monday.
“The size, scale and the nature of this spill the evidence is pointing to that this was a deliberate action,” Jill Jedlicka with the Buffalo Niagara River Keepers told 7 Eyewitness News.
An action Jedlicka with the Buffalo River keepers says is concerning.
“A spill of this magnitude and considering probably how it happened it’s not something our community should be complacent about.”
By Tuesday morning a clean-up was underway.
Investigators used special vacuum pumps to suck up the oil and any possibly contaminated water.
Mayor Dyster says right now the spill is close to completion and credits the regions dry weather aided in preventing the oil from washing down stream.
But the mystery remains - who is responsible for the spill.
“We really encourage citizens and residents of western new York that if the see something that doesn’t look right when it comes to their water ways to either gives us a call or give the agency a call,” Jedlicka said.
