VIDEO: Still a Pool of Oil Floating on the Nashua River

In this video clip you can see the area by the bank of the Nashua River where fire crews on Feb. 23 placed some absorbent booms. They were responding to a report by a passerby of a "rainbow sheen" on the river.

On Feb. 27 fire crews returned to reinforce the booms.

Deputy Fire Chief Michael O'Brien said that it did not appear to be a gushing oil situation. They were trying to figure out if someone illegally dumped some oil into a drain, or what the source of the oil might be.

I stopped by on Thursday morning to see how things looked.

You can also see the filmy oil floating with the current, along with a Dunkin' Donuts coffee cup in this clip.

And if you were there, as I was, you'd have smelled the distinctive odor of something like oil permeating the air.

After my visit, I checked back with the city.

Public Works Director Lisa Feauteax said she did not have any follow-up information, but believed the fire department was handling it.

So I called Nashua Deputy Fire Chief on duty Thursday, Brian Rhodes, who said the fire department had done pretty much what it can do, and he referred me back to the City's Wastewater Department, and the DES.

Then I called Kath Nelson, Water Monitoring Coordinator for the who said regular monitoring of the river by their organization normally happens between April and October. 

But she said she was going to go over and take a look later. In the meantime, she referred me to Rick Berry, Spill Response Investigator for NHDES, whom I called. Berry took some info and said he'd get right back to me.

He had George Carrigan, NHDES Environmentalist 4, call me right back, to say that he had spoken with Deputy Chief O'Brien on Wednesday, and that DES was not asked to provide any service at this time.

"They didn't ask for assistance, but I will follow up with the Deputy Chief today," Carrigan said.

Carrigan also said this time of year a "sheen" can be a lot of things.

"There's so much water coming through the drain system that if there is some oil residue as the volume of water increases, the presence of things like oil may occur. We get a lot of calls for sheens, which can also be due to runoff from roads – there are so many different things it could be," Carrigan said.

Anyway, he said he was going to check in with the city Thursday.

And I will check back with the city Friday, to see what's new.