The Oil Spill Summer and the Beginnings of My Environmental Awakening

My “Up at The River” Story described my time during the mid-1970s to mid-1980s at my maternal grandparent's house along the upper end of the Felix Dam recreation pool of the Schuylkill River, Muhlenberg Township, Berks County, where they had built a house in 1967-1968.

In that story, I wrote that "in July 1980, somewhere along the Schuylkill River, significantly upriver from the Ernesto’s, there was a major industrial oil spill, which covered the Felix Dam recreational area pool in black and ending that summer’s activity in the river.”

I had one fact incorrect. The oil spill likely occurred no more than 2 miles upriver from my grandparent's house, from an industrial plant. As a July 26, 1980, Reading Eagle photo caption of me and my brother describes, the spill came from a Reading Industries, Inc. plant in Ontelaunee Township, along the Pottsville Pike (Rt. 61). Reading Industries was a refiner of copper scrap and a manufacturer of copper tubing and had multiple plants in Berks County. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1981 and was acquired in 1982 by new ownership.

Here is the rest of that portion of the story.

For the remainder of that summer, we relied on a baby pool and hoses to have water fun!

As a kid, I was never concerned about water quality in the river I was swimming in; until the summer of 1980. At the age of 13, the oil spill began to awaken my environmental consciousness. During my 8th grade school year of 1980-1981, I entered the school’s science fair regarding the oil spill. There once was a family photo of the poster board I entered, which, unfortunately, has been lost for many years.

As I described in the “Up at The River” Story: “The river’s water quality seemed to decrease during the 1980s, after the oil spill. We still swam in it; a lot during the early 1980s. But, increasingly, especially during the mid-1980s, you would see groups of white bubbles with loose brown ‘stuff’ underneath them floating down the river, spanning the entire width of it. Sometimes, we would be in the river, and splash the stuff floating toward us away. We did not think it was sewage, but it baffled us: what was it and where did it come from?”

I attended a liberal arts college which required 1 full year of a science course. To meet that requirement, during my freshman year, I took an environmental science class. College chemistry, physics, or biology did not appeal to me and just seemed too hard. In the end, it was one of the better class choices I made.

The course was taught by Professor Candie Wilderman, who founded Dickinson College’s Environmental Studies Department/Program in 1981. There was extensive fieldwork during the course. We gathered water samples from local area streams and brooks and tested them back in the lab. We wrote field notes in our K&E issued yellow covered field notebooks. We visited a farm that produced electricity using trapped methane gas from cow manure; likely an innovation for the mid-1980s. We visited a trash landfill.

I fully enjoyed it, and still apply some basic science knowledge from this class as an archivist today, especially regarding watersheds.

Taking this class also sparked a general interest in trying to discover the root cause of the pollution floating down the river. My grandfather was semi-active in an organization called the Schuylkill River Greenway Association, and likely a member. The SRGA was founded in 1974 (incorporated in 1977), and until 2003, had its offices in Berks County. In the early 1980s, he had an SRGA newsletter, and I possibly recall that he also had a letter from them regarding a water quality test for that portion of the river, and he even possibly may have introduced me to someone regarding my water quality concern.

I even hatched a plan in my head that I would row my grandparent’s canoe upriver until I found the source of the pollution, have it tested, bring the wrongful party to justice, and restore the water quality of the river. I never actually went through it.

However, I do recall that through my studies and conversations, one theory developed around the potential of high levels of phosphates (from detergents?) as a potential cause of the white bubbles; and the brown stuff being excessive algae due to the phosphates. I am not a scientist and these theories were discussed while I was a young adult.

The decrease in the Schuylkill River’s water quality during the early 1980s likely had some role in my grandparent’s decision to install an in-ground pool in fall 1985, overlooking the river. Beginning in the summer of 1986, the pool would become the extended family's summer recreational gathering spot, rather than the river. From then on, we only used the river for boating, which, by the late 1980s, was a pontoon boat, rather than a speed boat. The traditional seasonal docks were no longer installed by the late 1980s.

While I am not an environmental activist, I have been concerned with environmental issues throughout my adult life. As an archivist and historian for a state forests and parks agency and a state metropolitan region water supply system, environmental records and issues surround my professional work.

It has been fascinating to learn about and talk to co-workers about forests and trees, and their pests; watershed management for a water supply system; the water quality of drinking water, of rivers and brooks, lakes and ponds, and beaches; and the value of open space.

© Sean M. Fisher, 2020

Oil Spill Summer Story Slideshow

Resources

The 1982 acquisition of Reading Industries is told in two articles by one of the buyers, Mark Furstenburg.

Mark Furstenburg, “One Man's Mission: To Save the Soul of an Old Machine,” Washington Post, July 10, 1983
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1983/07/10/one-mans-mission-to-save-the-soul-of-an-old-machine/ae45d9ea-a242-4473-858b-bf17529ff775/

Mark Furstenburg, “In Search of Survival,” Inc. Magazine (January 1, 1984)
https://www.inc.com/magazine/19840101/3965.html
“It was November 15, 1982, when Reading Industries became ours. Suddenly, I owned more than 20% of a company with three plants, 420 employees, a company that refined copper from scrap, extruded it, and finished it, a company that produced about 12% of the water tube made in America and had revenues of about $85 million a year.”