THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, January 26, 1996 TAG: 9601260517
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY SCOTT HARPER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PORTSMOUTH LENGTH: Medium: 53 lines
The Navy is cleaning up more than 80,000 gallons of jet fuel that spilled from a storage tank on Craney Island last week, a spokesman said Thursday.
None of the highly toxic fuel reached nearby Craney Island Creek, a tributary of the Elizabeth River. The fuel was contained in an earthen canal designed to protect the environment against overflows, said Bob Anderson, a spokesman for the Naval Fleet and Industrial Supply Center on Craney Island.
However, the ground beneath the storage tanks where the spill occurred remains saturated with fuel, and will be excavated and cleaned to prevent groundwater contamination, Anderson said.
Naval officials also are reviewing the incident, with an eye toward improving fuel-handling, he said.
The Navy uses a corner of the island in Portsmouth to hold fuels and supplies for its huge Norfolk fleet. The Coast Guard also maintains a support center there. The majority of the island is used for dumping tons of sandy bottom wastes dredged from the Elizabeth River and Hampton Roads.
About 5 p.m. on Jan. 17, a Navy crew started transferring jet fuel known as JP5 from one tank to another, Anderson said.
The crew was trying to make room for an incoming shipment.
But the crew misaligned the valves, and the potent mix of petroleum and chemicals was inadvertently pumped into a third tank that already was full, Anderson said.
For the next two hours, jet fuel overflowed the third tank, he said, until a passing crew member discovered the problem about 7:10 p.m.
Anderson could not say how many gallons were discharged, though about 80,000 have been recovered so far. ``We think we've got most of it now,'' he said. ``There may be a little still in the ground, though.''
The Coast Guard and environmental agencies were called after the incident, and responding officials quickly determined that no emergency existed and that the material would not reach local waterways, he said.
``This obviously doesn't happen frequently,'' Anderson said, ``but when you handle as much fuel as we do, there's going to be incidents.''
The contaminated soil will be placed in a bio-remediation cell where tiny microbes will eat hazardous hydrocarbons. After treatment, the soil will be returned to the ground. ILLUSTRATION: VP Map
KEYWORDS: FUEL SPILL U.S. NAVY by CNB