Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, April 13, 1990 TAG: 9004131091
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B3 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: By NEAL THOMPSON NEW RIVER VALLEY BUREAU
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"Everything's fine," said Wesley Graham, manager of Salem's Water and Sewer Department. "We've been very fortunate that nothing happened to us."
Graham said city workers had been monitoring water flowing downstream from the spill site, but it never reached a high enough concentration to force the department to shut down its water intake pumps.
Cleanup efforts continued this morning at the site of the wreck that spilled 2,700 gallons of diesel fuel and 100 gallons of lubricating oil in and near the north fork of the river.
The spill occurred when a 142-car Norfolk Southern coal carrier slammed into boulders that had slid down from a hill next to the tracks. The boulders punctured one of the locomotives and caused 12 of the coal cars to dump more than 1,000 tons of coal onto the tracks and into nearby yards.
NS spokesman Don Piedmont said crews had been working around the clock and at 12:30 this morning the tracks were cleared and open for service. The first train passed at 2:50 this morning.
Trains were routed to other tracks during the cleanup.
Piedmont said crews will continue to clean up the coal and remove the damaged coal cars and other debris.
"The other stuff will be some time. They'll move those cars and clean it all up, but that may take awhile," Piedmont said. He said he expected that to be completed within the next week or so.
Meanwhile, crews from Environmental Options Inc. in Rocky Mount, which has been contracted by NS, continued to soak up fuel that had been dumped into the yards of three homes near the railroad tracks and into a creek leading to the river.
They were also expected to begin excavating truckloads of dirt today from one of the yards that had been contaminated by lubricating oil, said company spokesman Hans Katenkamp.
by CNB