Date: Fri 14-Feb-1997

Publication: Bee

Author: KAAREN

Quick Words:

Dodgingtown-gas-spill-DEP

Full Text:

DEP Wants To Accelerate Gas Spill Clean-Up

BY KAAREN VALENTA

A state official overseeing the cleanup of a multi-million dollar gasoline

tanker spill in Dodgingtown said he intends to meet with the companies

involved next week in an effort to accelerate the clean-up.

William Warzecha, environmental analyst with the State Department of

Environmental Protection, said bedrock wells are being drilled to determine

how pollution caused by the October, 1996, spill has been entering the bedrock

aquifer and threatening the wells of nearby homeowners and the Limekiln Brook.

"They still need to contain the plume [of gasoline]. It has not been done to

my satisfaction to date," Mr Warzecha said. "There needs to be a huge effort."

Mr Warzecha said he was informed by Island Transport, the company which owned

the gasoline truck, that it needed to bring another insurance company into the

picture to provide the money needed for this stage of the cleanup.

"Island went to a different level, or tier, of insurance, with another

company," he said. "I was apprised of this on Monday. I want them on board as

soon as possible. I want the remedial activity to be accelerated."

Mr Warczecha said Omni Environmental Corp, of Amherst, Mass., is still

involved with the cleanup, but the new insurance company has brought its own

consultant into the effort.

In addition to the slowly moving plume of gasoline, gasoline has polluted the

soil in the historic Dodgingtown cemetery, and officials believe gasoline may

be pooled on top of the water table below the cemetery. Mr Warczecha said he

expects directional drilling to begin in about a week to remove this gasoline.

Shafts will be drilled from outside the cemetery on an angle, entering the

cemetery soil about ten feet below the surface so as not to disturb the

graves.

State Archaeologist Nicholas F. Bellantoni said on Monday he has reviewed the

plans to do the directional drilling under the cemetery and approves of the

plan.

"I think the diagonal approach is a good one but it should be monitored," he

said. "The cemetery also will need some cleanup and landscaping."

After the directional drilling is completed, venting and recovery equipment

will be installed to remove the gasoline. Directional drilling is the same

technique that is being used to protect tree roots along Main Street where

sewer pipes are being installed.

Representatives of the DEP and the companies involved with the clean-up met

with two dozen area homeowners in the Middle School Library last month to

review the cleanup plans.

Mr Warzecha said wells that potentially could be impacted are being tested

frequently and several have had carbon filters installed.

In the weeks after the spill, employees of Environmental Products & Services

of Stratford, the company hired by Omni to do the clean-up, dug a trench which

is about 100 feet long and 17 feet deep and filled it with crushed stone to

collect surface water that runs from Route 302 down the hill in a

southwesterly direction through the cemetery toward the brook. This water is

being collected, then treated to remove traces of MTBE, the chemical additive

in gasoline which is causing the pollution, and discharged back onto the

ground.

The interceptor trench system includes both a soil vapor extraction system and

a system to collect the liquid gasoline. In addition, bedrock wells have been

installed between the trench and the brook to pump out the groundwater and

also treat it.