Crews continue clean-up efforts at site of gas spill

Work con­tin­ues on the clean-up of a gas spill, and will con­tinue for sev­eral months.

The U.S. Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency (EPA), Ohio EPA, and Sunoco Logis­tics are still work­ing on clean-up of the site.

How­ever, ben­zene lev­els in the air are now low enough that res­i­dents have returned home and work­ers are no longer using oxy­gen masks.

Don de Bla­sio, of the U.S. EPA, said they have been tak­ing their own air sam­ples and com­par­ing their sam­ples with Sunoco’s.

“We take mul­ti­ple air sam­ples at a time, and ours have been con­sis­tent with Sunoco’s,” he said.

De Bla­sio said tests revealed ben­zene lev­els were less than six parts per bil­lion, so the air is now safe to breathe. When the spill first hap­pened, the ben­zene lev­els were about 65 parts per billion.

Accord­ing to de Bla­sio, who left the scene this week and returned to his office in Chicago, mem­bers of the U.S. EPA remain on the scene. He said even­tu­ally, though, they may leave the scene and have the Ohio EPA remain.

It’s still unknown what caused the spill, accord­ing to Joe McGinn, of Sunoco Logistics.

McGinn said the part of the pipeline that failed has yet to be dug up and ana­lyzed. How­ever, once it is dug up, it will be sent off scene to be analyzed.

“Once the sec­tion of pipe near the spill site is exca­vated, an inves­ti­ga­tion will take place to deter­mine what caused the leak,” he said.

The pipeline is inspected every five years and was sched­uled to be inspected again next month, accord­ing to rep­re­sen­ta­tives with Sunoco Logis­tics. It was first installed in 1952.

“Sunoco Logis­tics com­plies with all safety and reg­u­la­tory require­ments set forth by the U.S. Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion Pipeline and Haz­ardous Mate­ri­als Safety Admin­is­tra­tion (PHMSA),” McGinn said.

Work­ers have been on scene around the clock, get­ting rid of con­t­a­m­i­nated soil.

“(As of Mon­day), Sunoco Logis­tics employ­ees and con­trac­tors have worked nearly 25,000 hours in Welling­ton,” McGinn said.

The soil that is dug up is being placed in large, lined con­tain­ers, and being held at the Lorain County fair­grounds, accord­ing to de Blasio.

“The con­tain­ers are lined so there’s no way they can leak,” he said.

He said the con­tain­ers will later be moved to an EPA reg­u­lated land­fill in Toledo, where the soil will be prop­erly decomposed.

“We wanted to take it to the clos­est (EPA reg­u­lated) land­fill so there was no chance of con­t­a­m­i­na­tion when dri­ving on the high­way,” he said.

After the con­t­a­m­i­nated soil is gone, de Bla­sio said crews will test the air at the fair­grounds to make sure there is no con­t­a­m­i­na­tion there.

Res­i­dents have raised con­cerns about the noise the work has caused since return­ing home. Some res­i­dents have said the lights and noise at night have affected their sleep.

McGinn said work will remain around the clock for some time, but even­tu­ally, Sunoco hopes to only dig dur­ing the day.

Even though res­i­dents have returned to their homes, air mon­i­tor­ing con­tin­ues. How­ever, it’s unlikely ben­zene lev­els would raise again, caus­ing another evacuation.

McGinn said the prob­lem will be prop­erly taken care of to avoid another spill.

“What­ever the cause of the leak was will be iden­ti­fied and cor­rected prior to this seg­ment being placed back in ser­vice,” he said.

Sen­a­tor Sher­rod Brown has recently urged the PHMSA to take this seri­ously and do a thor­ough investigation.

“This inci­dent, much like a recent nat­ural gas pipeline explo­sion in Glouster, Ohio, under­scores the seri­ous nature of pipeline safety and reg­u­lar inspec­tions,” Brown said. “That is why I’m urg­ing the PHMSA to work with state reg­u­la­tors to under­take a timely and thor­ough inspec­tion of how this leak occurred and request that this pipeline not be reopened until ade­quate pre­cau­tions and repairs have been completed.”

Posted by Terra Carlson on Jan 26 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.