WALKER, Mich. — State officials are warning community members and visitors to stay out of the water at a popular West Michigan park.
The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) said Saturday that investigators found a heavy sheen on a pond adjacent to Millennium Park in Walker.
FOX 17 went to the scene to check it out and ran into Anthony Brown who said the pond is his weekly fishing spot.
“I pretty much walk from that end to this end,” Brown showed us. “I’ve seen big carp, caught some pike here, bass, mainly sunfish, you name it.”
He thinks the sheen is oil.
“There was a nice rainbow tint of just oil across it. You can smell the gas, too, but yeah, it’s like scuzzy water all the way across,” Brown said.
There are a few oil pump jacks around the park— the two surrounding the heavy sheen are offline.
Now, EGLE is investigating the sheen to determine whether it is oil.
“You can see the sheen just covering the water, I mean, my lures are getting caught in it and it actually changed the color of my line,” Brown said.
State officials have since posted signs telling people not to fish in the area.
Saturday’s sheen is the second contamination that EGLE has investigated in West Michigan this week— the first was determined to be an oil spill in Ottawa County’s Bend Area Open Space.
READ MORE: State, local officials monitor, investigate Ottawa Co. oil spill
