
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, March 28, 1992                   TAG: 9203280295
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By DAVID M. POOLE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BOONES MILL                                LENGTH: Medium

TRUCK CRASHES; SPILL KILLS FISH

Anglers were advised to avoid eating trout caught in part of Maggodee Creek in Franklin County following a tanker-truck accident Friday that spilled gasoline into the water.

"I recommend against eating fish caught in this section of the creek for a few days," said Sgt. R.B. Jenkins of the state Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.

"There's not going to be hardly anything in there alive to catch, anyway."

The spill killed an estimated 75 fish along a two-mile section of the creek, beginning at the intersection of U.S. 220 and Virginia 613, Jenkins said.

Franklin County authorities estimated that about 60 gallons leaked into the water from a tanker truck that missed a curve on U.S. 220 shortly after 5 a.m., crashed over the guardrail and burst into flames.

The driver - identified as Richard Michael Dooley - escaped without serious injury. He was treated at Roanoke Memorial Hospital and released, according to a hospital nursing supervisor.

The narrow, twisting section of four-lane highway was the site of another gasoline-tanker accident on almost the same date last year.

On March 28, 1989, a tanker carrying 8,700 gallons of gas missed a curve and plowed into a pottery outlet next to the Boones Mill Exxon.

In Friday's accident, the tractor-trailer came to rest about 50 feet from the creek before it burst into flames.

Southbound traffic was routed to one of the northbound lanes for several hours as rescue workers allowed the fire to burn itself out. Public Safety Director David Laurrell said extinguishing the blaze would have allowed more fuel to spill into the creek.

Rescue workers placed buoys across the creek to absorb a sheen of gas on the water. In addition to gasoline that spilled directly into water, fuel that soaked into the soil later leached into the creek, Laurrell said.

A local contractor, Environmental Options, began removing contaminated soil.

Laurrell said the cost of the cleanup will be recovered from the tanker's owner, Wendell Transportation of Selma, N.C.

by CNB