Hurricane Causes New Jersey Heating Oil Spill
A burst dam in New York State sent a wall of water slamming into a riverside heating oil company, damaging tankers and causing a spill of several thousand gallons. (image: John Moore/Getty Images via propublica.org)
New Jersey officials are testing water supplies for possible contamination after a heating oil company was inundated with flood waters during Hurricane Irene, northjersey.com reported.
Heating oil flowed into the Ramapo River when several oil tankers at Tuxedo’s SOS XTreme Comfort were damaged after a dam breached upriver in Arden, New York State.
New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection spokesman Larry Hajna said Tuesday that between 3000 and 5000 gallons are thought to have leaked after the riverside facility was severely damaged at the weekend.
Hazmat officials were at the site this week directing the clean-up. The New York Department of Environmental Conservation is conducting an official spill assessment.
Though Oakland Mayor John Szabo said it was unlikely the city’s wells had been infiltrated, officials had begun monitoring the water system and would retest it next week.
“We haven’t had a chance to assess the broader impact” to wildlife, he said. “The flooding itself is catastrophic enough and this just makes it worse.”
Mahwah residents were asked to conserve water and the borough shut down six wells as a precaution. River-goers have complained of strong fumes with reports of dead fish and oil coated animals washing up along its banks, Mahwah police chief James Batelli said.
“Where the river recedes, it’s leaving pools of standing water that we are getting reports of sheen and an odor,” he said.
Fuel company owner Jeffrey Spiegel issued an apology to residents downriver but said the 30,000-gallon facility was storing only a small amount of oil at the time of the spill, northjersey.com reported.
Tankers used to transport diesel and home heating oil were swept up by the weekend current, which sent an “eight foot wall of water down the river,” he said. One truck slammed into a pipe connected to a 250,000-gallon storage tank.
The company was still trying to determine the size of the spill. It had operated the Tuxedo facility since 1976 and had never experienced such extensive flooding.
Spiegel said the company “did what we thought was sufficient based on the water level we’ve seen in five or six previous floods over the last 30 years.”
It would have been nice if we could have forecast the dam breaking, but if it was not for the dam break, those trucks would be fine.
Sierra Club spokesman Jeff Tittel said the spill highlighted the need for regulations prohibiting gas stations and hazardous material storage facilities in environmentally susceptible areas.
