Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 29, 1993 TAG: 9303290100
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By TIM BOVEE ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: RESTON LENGTH: Medium
Water pressure was weak and residents of northern Fairfax County were asked to curtail water usage when a water intake on the Potomac River was shut down as diesel reached the river Sunday night, county fire spokesman Mike Reilly said.
"The product continues to flow into the river at this point," Reilly said shortly after the intake was shut down at 7:55 p.m.
"The tip of the fluid is now just reaching the Potomac. There is still miles of product behind that," Reilly added.
Neighboring Loudoun County set up an emergency evacuation center for about 200 residents who were told they could voluntarily evacuate because of fumes, Loudoun County fire spokesman Jim Barnes said. About 30 residents said they would leave.
The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors declared an emergency late Sunday, allowing the fire department to bypass usual purchasing procedures.
Hundreds of workers, including 250 from Colonial Pipeline Co., which owns the broken pipeline, were to work through the night to contain the fuel, which was as thick as 8 inches on some parts of the waterway leading to the Potomac, Reilly said.
About 336,000 gallons of fuel spewed from the pipe, and about a third of that went into Sugarland Run, a creek that feeds into the Potomac above the water treatment plant that serves northern Fairfax County.
"It's serious," said Kevin Coop, a regional emergency response coordinator for the Environmental Protection Agency. "It's a major inland oil spill. It's threatening the sensitive wetland ecosystems."
Emergency crews set up booms to stop the flow of the fuel down the creek and were building an earthen dam near the mouth of the stream. The dam would allow water beneath the surface to flow into the Potomac but would trap the fuel floating on top of the stream.
Vacuums used to suck the fuel from the top of the creek were overwhelmed by the quantity of fuel in the water, Fairfax County cleanup crews said.
The Fairfax County Water Authority had six hours of emergency supplies and began shipping water via pipe systems to the affected area when the Potomac intake was shut down.
Authorities did not know how long the intake would remain shut down.
The spilled fuel formed a thick white froth atop Sugarland Run where it flows through a 58-acre natural park in the town of Herndon.
In some areas of the densely wooded park, the fumes rose from Sugarland Run in a thick mist, and the air was nearly unbreathable.
"It has essentially killed Sugarland Run," said town councilman John DeNoyer.
He said the park is feeding ground for 116 species of birds, as well as deer, beaver, foxes and other wildlife.
Fairfax County officials said the spill was discovered around 9 a.m. by a police officer on patrol who saw fuel bubbling up from the ground behind the Reston Hospital Center.
The fuel spewed from a 36-inch steel pipe owned by the Colonial Pipeline Co.
The line runs 249 miles from Greensboro, N.C., to Doresey Junction, Md., near Baltimore.
Colonial spokesman Noel Griese said a 14-mile section of the pipeline was shut off to isolate the spill.
The company can't determine why the 13-year-old pipe broke until the area is excavated, Griese said.
A break like the one that caused the Sugarland spill would typically be 3 feet to 5 feet long "like a pair of open lips," Griese said.
Several streets in the town of Herndon were closed, and the smell of fuel oil was reported several miles away from the site of the spill.
Griese said the Atlanta-based pipeline company would pay all costs of the cleanup, with the first $2 million coming from company funds and anything above that from insurance.
Griese declined to estimate how much the cleanup might cost.
A kerosene leak from a Colonial pipe in 1989 polluted the Rappahannock River near Fredericksburg.
The leak is larger than the spill from an oil tank farm that polluted a suburban neighborhood several miles away.
That leak, blamed on Texaco affiliate Star Enterprise, is estimated to have been about 200,000 gallons.
Star Enterprise is paying for a cleanup that could take 10 years or more and has settled a lawsuit from homeowners who were affected by the spill.
by CNB