Leak cleanup nets 32K gallons of oil

VILLAGE OF CYGNET - Crews have recovered more than 32,000 gallons of crude oil that spilled two weeks ago into local waterways when a pipe ruptured at the Maumee Valley Pipeline facility just south of the Village of Cygnet.

According to Dina Pierce, spokesperson for the Ohio EPA, environmental cleanup crews removed 782 barrels of oil from Rocky Ford Creek and the Portage River farther north.

At 42 gallons per barrel, that translates to 32,844 gallons of crude oil vacuumed from the waterways. Those figures were provided by the Ohio EPA on Monday.

Those figures don't include oil removed from the banks of the creek and river, Pierce noted. Crews since last week have been burning off the sticky oil residue along some areas of the banks, and physically digging up and removing the contaminated soil in other areas.

Weather has hampered the recovery effort. First it was freezing temperatures and snowfall. Late last week it was rains which caused water levels to rise.

Crews are continuing to use large cylindrical booms to contain any residual oil remaining along the waterways.

Testing of water wells that provide drinking water to Cygnet residents showed negative results for any contamination in the days following the Feb. 18 oil leak occurred. The wells are more than 100 feet deep.

Additional testing occurs locally.

Pierce said the village's treatment plant "takes regular samples of its (treated) water to assure safety of the drinking water."

In addition, the Cygnet wells were already among wells in the Ohio EPA's statewide ambient ground water monitoring network which includes routine sampling to keep tabs on ground water quality throughout the state.

Meanwhile, the cause of the pipe failure remains under investigation. Sunoco Logistics Partners, which owns the local crude oil facility, has sent samples of the 22-inch diameter pipe for testing.

The pipe stretches from Lima into Michigan and provides crude oil to refineries in Toledo and Detroit. It was shutdown after the lead was discovered Feb. 18 and was back on line Feb. 22. A Sunoco spokesman said refineries were not adversely affected by the shutdown.

Brad Gilbert, director of the Wood County Emergency Management Agency, said cleanup crews are beginning to scale back the operation now that emergency phase of containment and abatement is over.

He said long term general clean-up will continue and could last several more weeks. Federal and state officials will meet with Sunoco representatives this week to decide what to do with all the contaminated soil located near the source of the original leak.

( The BG Sentinel-Tribune is a FOXToledo.com media affiliate)