A friend who lives on the Cambridge Riviera sent me an e-mail on Monday June 16 saying that there was another oil slick on the Charles River this morning. It extended from the Charles River Yacht Club opposite 100 Memorial Drive to some point down river from the Mirant Kendall electric plant. The Broad Canal was completely covered. This has been happening since April.

Both Cambridge Fire Department and the State Police were on the scene investigating. Mass DEP also sent a crew. I called the CFD and was told that the Mirant plant manager reported the spill at 9:28 A.M., and that they had eliminated the barges working on the Longfellow Bridge as a source. The gentleman also mentioned run-off as a possible source. This seems unlikely since the rain did not come until Monday night.

Cambridge Fire gave me the name of the DEP man on the scene. I called him and asked if he knew the source or the substance released. No and no, but they are working on it. Analysis of the oily material was still going on and the source had not been pinned down yet, but there are a couple of suspects. and Mirant is one of them. He did say that in a similar case up river a few years ago, a power plant was the culprit.

By the time I walked the area on Tuesday morning, we had had heavy rain and some good breezes, and the slick was light but quite visible. When I revisited the river at 9:00 Tuesday night, there was an oil boom around the Mirant cooling water out fall, and another along the portion of the Broad Canal that Mirant abuts. I did not walk as far as the Charles River Yacht Club on either occasion so I can report nothing about that.

I will add more information as it becomes available.