Colonial Pipeline, the largest refined products pipeline in the U.S., issued a statement that it underestimated the size of the gasoline spill released in August 2020 in Mecklenburg County’s Oehler Nature Preserve.
The company previously estimated the spill, which is the largest U.S. gas spill in 20 years, at 1.2 million gallons of gasoline and it did not provide a new estimate.
A NC Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) press release said that on April 15 Colonial verbally informed the agency that the previous estimate “was no longer accurate and that the model used was no longer appropriate.” DEQ said the news raised significant concerns about the accuracy of the estimated volume and the modeling it was based on.
“It is unacceptable that for eight months Colonial Pipeline has been unable to provide a reliable accounting of the amount of gasoline released into this community,” said DEQ Secretary Dionne Delli-Gatti. “We will take all necessary steps and exercise all available authority to hold Colonial Pipeline accountable for what has become one of the largest gasoline spills in the country.”
Colonial Pipeline, which carries more than 100 million gallons of fuel a day from Houston to New York Harbor, said in an April 16 statement that there are zones where product is located deeper in the soil than originally modeled but believes it has recovered the majority of what was spilled and has installed 118 wells to aid in the recovery effort as well.
Additionally, Colonial states that it has collected more than 600 surface and drinking water well samples and there has not been any detection of petroleum constituents in those collections.
The state of North Carolina is requiring the company to issue a revised assessment by April 26.
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