24-inch Crude Oil Pipeline Ruptures in Kentucky; Cleanup Could Take Days or Weeks

Winchester, KY, United States

1/27/2000 The pipeline, owned by Marathon Ashland Petroleum (MAP) ruptured Thursday afternoon (1/27/2000), releasing oil into Two Mile Creek about two miles southwest of Winchester.

Company officials estimated early today that between 11,500 and 21,000 barrels of oil were lost.

More than 2,200 barrels of an oil and water mix have been recovered so far, the company said.

About 100 Ashland employees and environmental specialists will continue clean-up operations over the weekend.

State officials advised people livning next ot or near the creek to extinguish any indoor or outdoor fires, to keep people and animals away from the creek and to avoid using spring or well water from the area.

At least five families were evacuated to a nearby motel, MAP spokesman Troy Reynolds said. The company housed any individuals who were concerned even though a formal evacuation was not ordered.

The pipeline carries oil from Owensboro, in western Kentucky, to a refinery in Catlettsburg, in eastern Kentucky.

MAP is a joint venture between Ashland and Marathon Oil.

Reynolds said the pipeline is typically buried up to six feet deep. It was unclear how far down workers had to dig to get to the break, he said.

Spokesman Chuck Rice said officials at the pipeline's control center in Findlay, Ohio, noticed a pressure drop in the pipeline in the middle of the afternoon Thursday _ around the same time fire officials in Clark County were getting their first phone calls from local residents.

Rice said the company dispatched teams from Louisville and Findlay to assess damage and assist with cleanup. He said it was not immediately clear how much oil had leaked or what caused the rupture.

Weiler said the spill occurred near the fifth green of the South Wind Golf Course, with oil oozing up from underground and into Two Mile Creek, a tributary of the Kentucky River that meanders through lightly populated farmland.

Weiler said the oil went about a mile down the creek before it was contained by cleanup crews. Rice said the crews deployed booms and were building three earthen dams to keep the oil from moving further downstream. Weiler was one of about three dozen to four dozen people on the scene overnight Thursday, including state and local officials and cleanup contractors who were using vacuum trucks to suck up the spilled oil and put it into tanker trucks.

Though the creek was not frozen, single-digit winter weather made it slower-moving than normal, Logan Weiler of the state emergency management agency said.

``We're just lucky that it's right now, when the stream bed is just sitting there with some pools in it and isn't flowing hard,'' Weiler said. ``If it was flowing hard, you would have had a real problem.''

Weiler said no major sources of drinking water were threatened by the oil, which he said would have had to reach the Kentucky River, and go another quarter-mile before reaching the intake for Winchester's municipal water supply.

Rice said a precautionary boom was being erected where Two Mile Creek enters the Kentucky River to keep any oil that might get that far from reaching the river. Weiler said officials were focused more on containment than figuring out what happened.

``We didn't even mess with the pipeline,'' he said. ``Stop the flow, get it contained. We'll look at it tomorrow to see why it happened and where it happened.''

http://chemsafety.gov/circ/post.cfm?incident_id=4637

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), January 28, 2000

Answers

What's the hoopla all about.....? This is an every-day occurrence, help me out here Y2K pro~ wasn't it at least 2 of these per month if memory serves me last year? So who cares right pro? huh~ pro you there ?

-- kevin (innxxs@yahoo.com), January 28, 2000.

We can be sure of two things . It WON'T be caused by a pressure sensor OR a valve control , and it CERTAINLY wasn't Y2K related ! Heaven forbid !! Eagle

-- Hal Walker (e999eagle@FREEWWWEB.COM), January 28, 2000.

Have you people everseen 11,500 barrels of oil? Do you know how much that is? Example one barrel is about 2 feet in diameter, so thats 11,500 x 2 = 23,000 feet. Divide 23,000/(5280feet[a mile]) and you have a wall of oil 4 feet hight 2 feet wide for 4 miles, and you say this happens about twice a month. Not in my back yard I hope.

justthinkin

-- justthinkin com (justthinkin@aboutoil.com), January 28, 2000.

Isn't it amazing, that whenever accidents occurr, they choose to use the measurement that is the least amount, WHATEVER it is?

21,000 barrels of oil is over 1/2 million gallons, 575,000 to be exact.

This was no SMALL spill.

-- Electman (vrepair1@tampabay.rr.com), January 28, 2000.

Maybe the oil has a will of it's own - seeking to return to the ground from whence it came.

-- Okie Dan (brendan@theshop.net), January 28, 2000.

This won't do much good for the oil market...or the environment!

-- Mad Monk (madmonk@hawaiian.net), January 29, 2000.

Let's just say for arguments sake that a barrel = 55 gals then

1 cubic foot = 7.481 gals

yeilding 7.35 cubic feet in a barrel

11500 barrels + 22000 barrels / 2 = 16250 barrels spilled

16250 x 7.35 cubic feet = 119,437cf

1 acre = 43,560 square feet

119437 / 43,560

yeilding 2.74 acres 1 foot deep in oil, is the apporximate size of the spill. Still a pretty big pool, but not the river suggested above. Worse case in 3.5 acres. Or about 30 swimming pools 8' X 120' X 40'

Actually your 21,000 x 55 gal per barrel = 1,155,000 gals (used above)

I chose to average the worse/best cases and play the middle until I know more. Or about 16,250 barrels spilt[g]

-- Michael (mikeymac@uswest.net), January 29, 2000.

DAMN IT MAN! ERROR ERROR TYPO ON LINE 4. RESIZE TO 21000 and GOTO 5

Still adds up the same, just a lazy pinky.

-- Michael (mikeymac@uswest.net), January 29, 2000.

"[T]he spill occurred near the fifth green of the South Wind Golf Course": Bet those ball washers'll get a workout.
"Caddie, my mashie, if you please. Shall I play a fade to the green?"
Does this change the handicap for the hole?
"Maybe we should've splurged $25 and rented a cart."
Insert your golf/oil spill joke here:______________ (Hey, let's have fun with this one).

-- Golfer (with@important.questions), January 29, 2000.

One last thing, I cringe at the rememberances of Exxon Valdez and other spill disasters. I've sailed those waters, and had a gold mine on Prince of Wales Island for a bit. I love that country and the effects remain today, 20 years later. http://www.exxonvaldez.org/report.html Link

But tankers carry nearly a million barrels at a time, so I am trying to give perspective as to the size, not the damage potential.

-- Michael (mikeymac@uswest.net), January 29, 2000.

There are about four pipeline ruptures per month - not two.

Most spills are 50,000 - 75,000 barrels.

This spill is relatively minor.

-- . (wiy@g.w), January 29, 2000.

Yikes! 21,000 gallons is 1.19 billion teaspoons.

That's about 1 teaspoon for every six persons on earth.

-- pokie (pokie@idont.haveaclue), January 29, 2000.