A month after the oil spill, the Kalamazoo River remains closed and the clean-up efforts continue. The spill, which made national news, came from a pipeline running from Indiana to Canada. Unlike the Gulf oil spill, the rupture was stopped relatively quickly, but over 800,000 gallons leaked into Talmadge Creek and flowed into the Kalamazoo River.
Further downstream, the Kalamazoo River is closed for another clean-up project: the removal of PCB-contaminated sediment.
update: Parts of the Kalamazoo River opened in 2010 and most of the river opened in 2012
I grew up in Kalamazoo from the late '60s til I moved out of state in the early '80s. Even when I was growing up, it was common knowledge that the Kalamazoo River was too polluted to be much good for anything recreational -- a forgotten, taken-for-granted minor riverway. I even recall that our jr. high school science class, studying environmentalism and pollution, visited the banks of the river. This was probably early '70s. Where we went was dense with vegetation, marshy -- like something out of an Henri Rousseau jungle painting. Probably plenty of mosquitoes. I still remember watching my foot sink into riverside ooze that was, at the same time, fascinating and icky. I never saw the river again. That's rather sad for someone who grew up there, though I grew up in Portage, near Oakland & the interstate, so there wasn't much reason to go over where the river lies.
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