Oil spill soils birds, dirties Montreal’s Pointe-aux-Trembles shoreline [Video]

The Canadian Coast Guard (CCG) and Urgence-Environnement were trying to contain an oil slick Friday in the St. Lawrence River near Pointe-aux-Trembles.

CCG teams were on site all day and “proceeded to actively contain the slick and recover the pollutant,” the organization said in an update on its website, adding that recovery operations would resume early Saturday.

The Ministry of the Environment’s analyses show that it is motor oil, but the source and quantity of the product forming the slick are still unknown, CCG said.

By 1 p.m. Friday, the CCG had collected a mixture of water and hydrocarbons with a volume of 3,000 litres, and by 5 p.m., a total of 7,000 litres.

Helicopters carried out surveillance flights to check for oil elsewhere in the area.

On Thursday, the Coast Guard received a report confirming a slick of unknown origin between 13th Avenue and Tricentenaire Boulevard in Montreal.

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