A pipeline break in Illinois released 5,790 barrels of crude oil into an upland field and bottomland slough in August 2008.  Contaminant biologists from the Rock Island, Illinois, Ecological Services Field Office were called out to support the emergency response by the oil company and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.  Few wildlife specimens were found dead which is lucky.  However, over 2,000 barrels of crude oil flowed into weltands and a slough off of Elm Creek in Fayette County, Illinois.  The oil company had to cut new roads through the bottomland forest to get their vacuum trucks over to the slough for recovery operations.  There was close coordination with the contaminants biologists to minimize the effects to the federally listed endangered Indiana bat.  This bat species roost in bottomland forest trees.  We selected road routes that reduced the wetland impacts and avoided trees that are preferred by this bat species.  The emergency response was completed in about two weeks.  The site will now be evaluated for long term remediation.  The company was able to recover over half of the crude oil that was released into the environment.