Neighbors push for answers after oil, sludge seen in Louisville waterway after UPS crash

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Some residents living near Louisville's airport are raising environmental and safety concerns after Tuesday's deadly UPS plane crash.

Video from a waterway not far from the crash scene shows workers scooping black sludge and a film of oil from a waterway known as Northern Ditch, which is in the area of National Turnpike and Sam Drive, not too far from the Muhammad Ali International Airport. The entire area, neighbors said, smells like jet fuel.

Despite a barrier in place on the waterway, the oil slick can still be seen moving downstream.

"The water is still black and, afterwards, you can still see it's black. Across the street, the water runoff is still black," Doug Black, a concerned resident who lives near the waterway, said.

Black said workers told him they were pumping the oil runoff from the plane crash. He met a WDRB News crew at National Turnpike, over the ditch. It's outside the quarter-mile radius where people have been told not to drink their tap water, following the plane crash.

But Black doesn't think the waterway is safe either, and doesn't think what the workers are doing is working.

"We need some people out here, some leadership to take over and stop this from getting into our neighborhoods," he said. "All these, along with our lakes in Yorktown North could become contaminated. And as you can see, this remediation has not worked."

He said he's called the EPA, MSD and several other agencies trying to get a response to his safety concerns. But, he said he hasn't gotten straight answers from anyone.

With rain in the forecast, he said he's worried the oil will be flushed into more neighborhoods in southwest Jefferson County.

WDRB reached out to the Kentucky Environmental and Energy Cabinet, which said UPS and their contractor are working to remove the oil. The cabinet also said it is monitoring the water, and have found no impacts to aquatic life so far.

UPS identifies 3 pilots who were on plane that crashed in Louisville

Louisville mayor says coroner still working to identify victims of UPS plane crash

NTSB releases final altitude, speed of UPS plane that crashed leaving Louisville's airport

Body camera footage shows what led up to deadly Louisville police shooting in Newburg

FAA records reveal crashed UPS cargo plane once had cracks, corrosion on fuel tank