Oil spill in Long Island's Mill River forces around-the-clock environmental cleanup
It was all hands on deck as PSEG Long Island contractors kept working to contain the spill Thursday in East Rockaway after an underground electrical transmission cable surrounded by a cooling oil started leaking Monday.
With state oversight, PSEG Long Island contractors removed hundreds of gallons of oily water and set up containment booms in the East Rockaway Channel after fluid leaked into the Mill River.
"Literally, it looks just like a rainbow on the water and you can see the oil," Joey Leggio, an Oceanside boat captain, said.
"A lot of people used to go swimming here. Now, how are you going to go swimming in this water now?" Dominic Decrescenzo, of East Rockaway, said.
PSEG Long Island said the source of the dielectric fluid leak was discovered Wednesday night. The fluid is similar to mineral oil, which is nonhazardous, the utility said.
The flow of fluid was stopped and crews started repairing the cable, the utility said.
Environmental crews also took time to wash off greasy swans and ducks. Though the fluid was deemed nonhazardous, at least two ducks died and good Samaritans have been finding other injured birds.
"Any sort of foreign substance on a bird's feathers is extremely hazardous to them. It negates their ability to control their own temperature, it stops them from being buoyant. So that they can sink down into the ocean and actually drown," John Di Leonardo, with Humane Long Island, said.
"It's a shame. It's really sad, these poor birds," Leggio said.
Several Long Island rescues, including the Wildlife Center of Long Island and Sweetbriar Nature Center, have stepped up to help rehabilitate the birds.
PSEG Long Island also said it understands residents' concerns about the cleanup and that it was working to address the issues, while emphasizing the fluid is not hazardous.
The utility's full statement is as follows:
On Monday, July 14, PSEG Long Island removed an underground transmission cable from service because of a leak of nonhazardous dielectric fluid. Crews have located the leak and are working around the clock to make repairs to the affected cable. The flow of dielectric fluid has ceased.
This transmission cable running beneath the Mill River Bridge along Atlantic Avenue in East Rockaway provides critical electric service for customers throughout western Nassau County. PSEG Long Island is working in cooperation with the U.S. Coast Guard and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to remediate the nonhazardous fluid, which is similar to mineral oil. PSEG Long Island has also been in close contact with town and village officials to keep them apprised of the work being performed.
PSEG Long Island is also working with our partners in wildlife conservation. They are aware of the situation. If members of the public believe they have encountered birds that have come into contact with remaining dielectric fluid in the containment systems, they can call the Wildlife Center of Long Island, which accepts larger birds such as swans, at 516-674-0982, or Sweetbriar Nature Center at 631-979-6344. We ask the public not to interrupt our crews so they can remain focused on safely completing this intensive, emergency work as quickly as possible.
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Restoration During one of Yasin's last big projects for EcoPeace, in 2022, he took school groups to meet farmers in Abassan, south of Deir al-Balah, where he was concerned by irrigation with greywater — household wastewater — and the overuse of fertilizers and pesticides. The teenagers, he said, enjoyed working with the farmers to help find new ways to cultivate their grains and orchards. 'Some of them became teachers and environmental engineers, imagine. The environmental and water situation was improving, and heading in the right direction — I noticed that each visit. I was really very happy.' Those fields no longer exist, and all his work on keeping Gaza's water clean is gone. 'Unfortunately everything is over,' he said. Wadi Gaza, a fragile wetland and nature reserve to the north of Deir al-Balah, had suffered from years of neglect, but grassroots projects backed by international organizations were starting to make a difference. Now, it's a wasteland. Other ecosystems across Gaza have also been destroyed, including orchards, olive groves and the vast majority of the territory's tree cover. Nearly All of Gaza's Trees Have Been Destroyed UNEP has warned that simply making a comprehensive assessment of the damage, and then removing contaminants, might take years. The UN estimated in February that the reconstruction of Gaza will cost at least $53 billion and last around a decade. Since the war began, Yasin has moved around eight times, seeking shelter. In June, he described displacement as 'a kind of living death,' but said he was resolved to stay in Gaza after the fighting ends and rebuild. As the IDF began expanding their military campaign into Deir al-Balah this week, Yasin said the extent of the destruction makes it harder for him to see a future in Gaza. 'The situation is worse than ever,' he said. 'I never imagined that it would get to this point.' Photos edited by Maria Wood With assistance from Salma El Wardany Marissa Newman Methodology Imagery Collation For comparative analysis, we constructed two strip-wide, high-resolution satellite imagery mosaics; a pre-conflict period using images from May and June 2023, and a current period with images from June 2025. Each mosaic was assembled by stitching 10 separate image acquisitions to ensure complete and cloud-free coverage, and we performed a color correction process known as histogram matching. This procedure corrects for atmospheric differences and variations in sun angle between the collects, resulting in a seamless and consisent dataset. Mapping Waste Sites We mapped waste sites in the June 2025 satellite mosaic by developing and applying a specialized deep learning model. Initial labeling was informed by geolocated sites from War and Garbage in Gaza, a July 2024 report by the peace organization PAX. Many of these sites had moved or expanded since the report's publication, and we conducted a comprehensive manual labeling effort, identifying additional sites by closely examining the satellite imagery. We then fine-tuned a ResNet18 semantic segmentation model to identify and outline areas corresponding to waste sites across the entire 2025 mosaic. Following the automated detection, every computer-generated result was manually validated to ensure the highest possible accuracy. This review process involved removing false positives, which primarily consisted of rubble fields. Our analysis cannot measure the volume of trash at a site, distinguish smaller waste sites and identify trash that is mixed directly with rubble. The resulting map of waste sites should be considered a conservative estimate, and the true extent is likely greater. Mapping Tents To map the proliferation of tents, a proxy for displaced populations, we employed a machine learning classification model. The model was trained on a multi-temporal dataset created by 'stacking' the pre-conflict (2023) and current (2025) image mosaics. Training points were manually labeled by visually identifying tents and tent clusters in the 2025 imagery. All automated detections were subjected to a rigorous manual validation process to confirm their accuracy and minimize errors.
