PORTLAND (AP) – It was a decade ago that Sheryl Bernard walked along the riverfront to survey damage following the spill of nearly 180,000 gallons of oil when a tanker crashed into the Million Dollar Bridge.

The gash in the Julie N’s hull sent oil flowing up the Fore River, coating the banks in black goo and damaging wildlife.

“I just can’t walk through this area without remembering how it was a few days after the oil spill, how sickening a feeling it was. It looked like someone had painted the marsh black,” said Bernard, an oil and hazardous materials specialist for the Maine Department of Environmental Protection in Portland.

On Wednesday, there was no evidence of the biggest spill in Portland Harbor’s history as officials gathered along a riverside trail that was created with money from a legal settlement to tout their success.

About $40 million was spent on the operation in which 78 percent of the oil was recovered, and another $16 million was spent on claims, said Deb Garrett, acting deputy commissioner of the Maine Department of Environmental Protection.

The ship’s owner, Amity Product Carriers Inc., also agreed to pay $1 million for salt marsh and wildlife restoration projects.

That money has been used by the state to purchase Flag Island, which provides seabird habitat, by the city to purchase oil-removal equipment, and by Portland Trails to complete the Fore River Trail Project, which was dedicated five years ago.

Another $475,000 will be used to help restore 30 acres of former salt marsh in Scarborough to make up for the destruction of waterfowl and waterfowl habitat, said Rich Dressler of the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.

That project, due next year, entails redirecting salt water to the marsh and removing invasive plants, he said.

The spill happened at 11:05 a.m. on Sept. 27, 1996, when the Julie N smashed into the old Million Dollar Bridge. The ship’s fuel oil, as well as some of the heating oil in its cargo tanks, poured into Portland Harbor.

Oil booms were deployed within eight hours to help contain the spill, officials said, but the upper Fore River was blackened with oil. The local docking pilot told investigators he caused the accident by mistakenly ordering a left turn instead of right turn to steer through the narrow channel under the bridge. The old span has since been replaced by the larger and taller Casco Bay Bridge.

The time of the year helped in the recovery.

Lobsters were moving toward deeper water and the impact on birds was reduced because the seasonal migration had not yet begun.

Officials made a bold decision. They decided to let nature run its course because they feared the removal of oil from marsh grasses would have been more destructive than letting the normal cycle of snow and ice accomplish the same task.

Officials agonized over the decision, but it was the right one because there was little evidence of the oil a year later, Bernard said.

“The decision not to get aggressive about cleaning the marsh was something we all wrestled with. In the end it certainly was the right decision and the marsh has recovered,” he said. “It certainly was a remarkable turnaround.”

The state is now better prepared for an oil spill. In a recent test, booms were deployed in 1 hour, compared to 8 hours following the Julie N spill, said Mark Hyland, the DEP’s acting director for remediation and waste management.

The state now has better response vessels as well as a skimmer deployed aboard a barge that’s ready to go on a moment’s notice, Hyland said.

Also, booms are now stored at permanent anchorage points built on shore at the mouth of the Fore River, and there’s a motorized, portable boom reel that makes quick work of deployment of heavy oil booms, he said.

Preparation remains important even though such spills are rare, said Burt Russell, who was Coast Guard captain of the port at the time of the Julie N spill.

“The odds of something like this happening were pretty slim, but it did happen,” said Russell, who now works for Sprague Energy Corp. in Portland.

AP-ES-09-27-06 1613EDT

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