Quick response helps cleanup
After a hazardous-material spill, private firms and public agencies work to clean up.
By RUSTY DENNEN
The Free Lance-Star
Date published: 11/23/2002
Even before a tanker truck driver lost control of his rig and spilled nearly 7,000 gallons of gas onto U.S. 29 in Madison County, Matt Culwell was ready.
Culwell's employer, A&A Environmental Service in Stafford County, has a contract with the truck-line owner to respond if there's a spill. So Culwell and his co-workers were on the scene within hours of the Monday accident.
"They call and ask us to clean up their mess," said Culwell, A&A Environmental's operations manager. "It could be anything from a diesel fuel tank on a truck to a whole tanker load."
A&A Environmental, a division of US Liquids, is one of about a dozen environmental cleanup firms in Virginia. It handles about 200 such calls a year.
Most spills involve gas or oil, Culwell said. The two are similar in the way they are cleaned up, except that gas is more dangerous because it's highly flammable.
Because of confidentiality agreements, Culwell would not discuss details of the Madison spill, which has snarled traffic all week on the dual-lane highway.
But officials say the quick response by private companies, local firefighters and state agencies prevented a bad situation from becoming much worse.
And though there's no typical cleanup job, Culwell says this week's spill illustrates how the cleanup process works.
First, "I try to get a mental picture" of the scene, he said. For example, a call about a truck leak in a parking lot is fairly routine. "You typically pressure-wash the lot and vacuum it up," he said.
Vacuum trucks--similar to those used to empty septic tanks--safely suck gas and oil into sealed containers.
"If it gets into the soil, we dig it up with a Bobcat or a backhoe. If it's in a stream, we may put in a boat. Each scenario is different, and we have methods to handle it," Culwell said.
In Madison, gas first had to be vacuumed off the road and ditch. Then hundreds of tons of contaminated soil had to be removed. That work was completed only yesterday because the fuel had seeped more than 15 feet into the ground and under the roadbed.
A&A Environmental's response trucks are equipped with absorbents and materials to fix leaks. For example, Culwell said, "We buy a type of putty to plug holes."
Date published: 11/23/2002
|
Star Directory
