An official admits there is little chance of recovering all the remaining oil in the North Saskatchewan River.
in the daily media conference call Tuesday with reporters, Ash Olesen, from the Ministry of Environment, characterized as “low” the chances of being able to recover all of what’s left of the oil that has been spilled.
“There could be some material that has sunk to the bottom and that is extremely difficult to recover,” said Oleson.
“It’s unlikely we can recover all of it and I cannot provide an estimate as to how much.”
According to Olesen, some 1,217 water samples had been taken overall since the beginning of operations and more than 900 had been analyzed, and results of 256 samples had been received as of Monday.
In addition, an interim scientific report on water quality in the river is being reviewed.
Olesen said in that call that the ministry was interested in getting that interim scientific report on water quality and the river assessment out to stakeholders that day, and the intention was to make that public Wednesday.
According to provincial officials approximately 133,000 litres of oil have been recovered so far from the estimated 200,000-250,000 litres that spilled. It was not known the exact amount of oil still to be recovered.
As for wildlife mortalities the confirmed number is 58.
As for water quality, it was doing well for the moment in North Battleford, which was still working on a direct line from Battleford as of that morning.
