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Date Posted: 03:02:25 11/19/06 Sun
Author: Don Johnson
Subject: Naturally Oil Leaking Into The Kenai River?

Naturally Occurring Oil Sources Leaking
Into The Kenai River?

Naturally Occurring Oil Sources Leaking
Into The Kenai River?

Could it be possible! Could petroleum actually be leaking into the Kenai River from NATURAL SOURCES?
The answer is YES, but don't ask the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA or the Department of Environmental Conservation, DEC, for the location.
For that information you need to consult a much more scientific source, your local duck hunters. Duck hunters always seem to know so much more about what is really going on with our rivers than most of our governmental agencies.

There I was stomping through the Kenai River mud trying to find a good spot for a duck hunting blind and there it was! It was the perfect pothole.
I stepped into that sticky and stinking pothole and soon regretted those steps.
I had thought the visible ooze was just the normal "never let you go" slime mud found all over the Kenai River, but it was not. Just two steps in and one foot stuck thus pulling me off balance and forcing me to fall backwards.
The ooze seeped into my waders and over my coat, it felt more like glue than mud.
I flopped around in that mess for about 30 minutes before I escaped. The rest of the day was spent bathing in gasoline in an attempt to get the oil off. You could rub that stuff with gas and it would just smear from your shoulder to your elbow.
I soon discovered there are locations in Alaska where oil naturally oozes or leaks to the earth's surface and is eventually transformed from a clear fluid to a tar-like substance called asphaltum.
The lighter components of the oil may be lost to evaporation but the remaining heavier oil can be oxidized and degraded by bacteria until it becomes sticky and black.
Our Kenai River Flats do contain locations where asphaltum pools in seeps near the river and in some locations they do leak into the river.
These seeps form pothole like pools which eventually accumulate with time and sometime even harden to form a hard, rolling surface that look a lot like old, worn-out pavement. Just about every digger in Alaska has been digging along with a backhoe and suddenly hit something like old pavement.
A lot of this stuff is old seeps which accumulated, evaporated and hardened.

The point is that there are many natural petroleum seeps and hardened asphaltum deposits on the Kenai River and it is highly UNLIKELY that the EPA or the DEC has mapped each one of these. If mapping is unlikely, what do you think the chances are of them recording how much these locations contribute to their "Impaired" petroleum data?

Natural oil seeps sources account for almost 8 percent of the total observed "oil spills" worldwide.
Where are the EPA & DEC studies which address these other possible petroleum sources on the Kenai?
There are a great many reasons for petroleum to be found within the Kenai River, not just one. It could have been a motorist draining their engine oil into the Fred Meyer's parking lot drain, which just happens to directly empty into the Kenai River.
It could have been a commercial fisherman deliberately pouring oil into the river in a misguided attempt to frame bank owners or boat owners.
It could have just been from natural petroleum seeps.
The point is that the EPA and the DEC have no way to eliminate or address this endless parade of possible petroleum sources.
The point is that it is slightly "covenant" for a governmental agency to randomly toe tag
boats to be the absolute source of their "impaired" petroleum data collected on the Kenai River.


Don Johnson
ccpwow@gci.net
Soldotna, Alaska

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