THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, February 22, 1996 TAG: 9602220366
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY SCOTT HARPER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 57 lines
To dozens of anxious workers in downtown Norfolk and Portsmouth, it looked like a big oil spill.
As they peered down from high-rise offices Wednesday morning, many saw a long stream of black goo floating in the Elizabeth River, past Waterside and the heart of the business district.
``It's moving slow, but it's nasty looking. There's clumps in it,'' said Melissa Dear, who noticed the black flow about 9 a.m. from her ninth-floor window in the NationsBank building in Norfolk.
After receiving a flurry of concerned phone calls, the Coast Guard sent two response teams to the river. By midmorning, samples were taken and officials had determined that the goo was not oil but coal dust, said Lt. Dan Rotermund, a Coast Guard spokesman.
``We think it'll sink or just flush itself out,'' Rotermund said. ``It's not in any concentration that we think will be harmful.''
Sheens of coal dust are not exactly news in a region where most of the East Coast's coal supply is handled. But this dusting was unique in two ways, Rotermund said.
Its size was unusually large, extending from the Portsmouth Marine Terminal south to the Berkley Bridge. And coal dust normally is a problem only in summer, when storage piles dry out and particles can be carried by the wind.
On Wednesday, however, the weather was damp, cold and calm - hardly ideal for an incident.
Indeed, Coast Guard officials remain baffled by the dust's origin. There are plenty of coal-using industries along the Elizabeth River and its branches, including the huge coal storage yards at Lamberts Point in Norfolk.
But Bob Fort, a spokesman for Norfolk Southern Inc., which owns the coal yards near West Ghent in Norfolk, said managers could find no evidence the dust came from company storage piers.
The material was carried by currents and light winds to the Norfolk side of the river. By noon, chalky black pools had accumulated along bulkheads near Nauticus and Town Point Park. Ducks swam through the debris.
Ray Alden, director of Old Dominion University's Applied Marine Research Lab, has studied toxics in the Elizabeth River extensively. He said coal dust is not a big threat to a waterway that faces much more severe pollution.
``As pollutants go, it's pretty benign,'' Alden said. ``It's more of an aesthetic problem than an ecological one.'' ILLUSTRATION: HUY NGUYEN/The Virginian-Pilot
Clumps of coal dust float on the Elizabeth River near Nauticus
Wednesday. Lt. Dan Rotermund, a Coast Guard spokesman, said, ``We
think it'll sink or just flush itself out. It's not in any
concentration that we think will be harmful.''
KEYWORDS: COAL DUST ELIZABETH RIVER by CNB