Company says Highland oil spill cleanup 95 percent complete; Silver Lake reopens

Officials from the oil pipeline that spilled more than 4,200 gallons of crude oil into Silver Creek and Silver Lake said on Monday their cleanup efforts are winding down.

Phil Smith, vice president of operations for Houston, Texas-based Plains All American Pipeline L.P., (Plains) estimated that the cleanup is 95 percent complete.

Jason Blevins, director of eastern operations for Plains, said the company is currently “chasing sheen areas” that pop up.

“At this point, all the free oil has been removed, that is visible, from the creek,” Blevins said.

Blevins said the company uses booms to corral sheen areas and absorbent pads to soak up the oil.

The spill happened the morning of Friday, July 10 at a pumping station near Baumann and Pocahontas roads, near the Bond-Madison county line, northeast of Highland.

The unmanned pumping station is part of the Capwood pipeline, a 20-inch conduit that connects an oil storage facility near Patoka, Ill., with the refinery in Wood River.

A failure in a small-diameter fitting within the station was to blame for the leak, company officials and state investigators said.

The Plains’ Control Center in Texas received a call at approximately 7:45 that morning from a citizen who saw oil being released from the station, according to the company.

Brad Leone, director of corporate communications and stakeholder relations for Plains, said the pipeline is equipped with an alarm system designed to sense changes in pressure. However, since the leak was from a small fitting, it did not trip a sensor before the passer-by noticed the leak.

The company said a controller shut down the pipeline within two minutes and stopped the flow of oil. But recent rains had area ditches flowing that morning, and they carried some of the oil into Silver Creek and ultimately the north end of Silver Lake.

Highland City Manager Mark Latham said he was happy with the cleanup progress so far.

“Things are going well,” Latham said.

Smith, the Plains vice president, said the company would be on-site until the job gets done.

“We intend to be here as long as it takes to return this thing to its normal state,” he said.

Latham said government monitors would also be around.

“The company doesn’t do anything unless the U.S. EPA says they can do it,” Latham said.

Water conditions improved dramatically in the week following the spill, said Andrew Maguire, an on-scene coordinator with the U.S. EPA Region 5 office, especially in the area of the boat launching pad on Prairie Road in rural Grantfork.

“We have contained the spill and cleaned a lot of the oil out,” he said. “We were able to contain the spill to up near Grantfork and to where the release happened.”

The company has already publicly apologized for the spill. Smith did so again Monday at the Highland City Council meeting.

“We deeply regret what has happened here,” he said.

The company said it contained a portion of the spill at the pump station site before it reached Little Silver Creek, which feeds into Silver Lake. Silver Lake serves as Highland’s water supply. Highland also supplies water to the villages of Grantfork, Pierron and St. Jacob from the lake.

So far, drinking water has been unaffected by the spill, city and pipeline officials said.

While the spill did make it to the northern reaches of Silver Lake, it did not flow far enough south to interfere with the water supply, officials said.

“We’ve been sampling (at the Interstate 70 bridge), and we’ve got all zero hits,” Blevins said.

The city was hopping to reopen Silver Lake for recreational purposes over the weekend, but that did not happen until Wednesday at 8 a.m.

“We would caution boaters to refrain from coming near containment booms left in the lake and from traveling upstream into the Silver Creek,” said Highland Police Chief Terry Bell. “These areas are still off limits until we advise further.”

Shimkus, Durbin tour spill site

On Friday morning, Latham, Highland’s city manager, and Congressman John Shimkus, R-Collinsville, took a 30-minute helicopter ride over the site.

Shimkus said he believes the company’s response was “adequate.”

“I am confident that all necessary steps are being taken to contain and clean up the oil,” he said.

Shimkus said he was “especially pleased” by the cooperation between landowners, Highland, Plains and government regulators.

“I will continue to monitor the cleanup and, more broadly, I will be working with PHMSA (Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration) to see that mandates required by the Pipeline Safety Act of 2011 are fully implemented,” he added.

On Tuesday of last week, Shimkus questioned PHMSA Interim Director Stacy Cummings about the situation during an Energy and Commerce Subcommittee hearing.

“I asked Cummings to explain how the criteria and benchmarks in PHMSA’s Corrective Action Order could provide the local community with some certainty that the pipeline will be safe when it resumes operation,” he said.

According to Shimkus, Cummings said the order, which was issued on July 14, would look at pipe fittings across the pipeline network as well as how long it took for Plains to notify emergency responders of the situation.

Shimkus also asked Cummings what actions Congress could take to help PHMSA collect data from states and localities about drinking water supplies to aid in future analysis, planning and responses.

Latham said that Shimkus also indicated there might be federal funds available to dredge the north end of Silver Lake, a plan that has been on the books for years, but he city has not had the funds to implement.

“He indicated he would work with us to put that plan in place… We will coordinate our plans with the congressman and his staff to try and get some funding for that,” Latham said.

Meanwhile, Latham said the city is also working with Plains to possibly construct another access point somewhere north of Interstate 70.

U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) toured the oil spill site on Monday. He was joined by officials from the city and the U.S. EPA to view the damage and cleanup efforts.

“It’s a reminder, we have a lot of oil pipelines out there,” Durbin said. “They are an important part of our commerce and an important part of our economic future, but we need to make sure they are safe, inspected regularly, and if there’s ever any kind of spill like this one, it needs to be cleaned up efficiently and quickly. From what I have seen — and I am a total amateur — it looks like they were on the spot quickly; they managed to clean it up in a very efficient way.”

Durbin said he will ensure that all necessary federal resources are available to Highland.

Lawsuit filed

A lawsuit seeking class-action status has been filed on behalf of Highland residents against the company responsible for the oil spill into Silver Creek.

The federal lawsuit was filed last week, on Wednesday, on behalf of resident Kevin Nodine and unnamed others against, seeking restoration of property and damages in the oil spill.

The lawsuit alleges that Plains violated the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 by faulty maintenance and negligence. It alleges that if Plains was exercising reasonable care at the pumping station, they “knew or should have known” the fitting could rupture and spill significant amounts of oil into the waterways.

The company has not issued a response to the suit.

The suit seeks that the court require Plains to remove oil from private properties, restore the waterways and properties and compensate the residents for the impact on their properties, both for actual damages and punitive. A dollar amount was not included in the complaint, but indicated the amount would be in excess of $5 million, not including costs. It also seeks a permanent injunction to stop Plains from operating a pipeline and pump station without adequate safety measures.

The suit alleges that this spill and the recent, much larger spill in California are “clear examples of a large corporation putting profit over safety at the expense of innocent people and wildlife, as both spills resulted from the unlawful acts and negligence of defendants, and their failure to properly maintain and inspect their equipment to prevent these spills.”

The suit seeks to include as class members any person or business who can claim economic losses, property damage, impact on their business, health problems or any other impact from the oil spill.

The suit was filed by the Driscoll Law Firm, and comes immediately after the Illinois Department of Transportation has issued a corrective action order for the station in which the spill occurred. The exact nature of the order was not immediately known. Plains has issued a statement that they take their responsibility seriously and implement all the steps outlined in the government order.

It makes reference to Plains’ previous problems with oil spills. The company settled a multi-million-dollar case with the U.S. EPA a few years ago, after nearly 275,000 gallons of oil were released in 10 separate incidents within three years in Texas, Kansas, Louisiana and Oklahoma. The causes were usually cracks or damage to the pipes or internal corrosion. As a condition of the settlement, Plains was to conduct weekly aerial surveys of its pipelines and add computerized leak detection systems on 110 sections of pipelines. Plains was required to make $41 million in improvements and pay $3.25 million in civil penalties.

Last month, another pipeline break in California spread oil over 100 miles to Los Angeles beaches. The full impact of that spill is not yet known, but is estimated at about 101,000 gallons, according to news reports.

Plains had previously said it would offer compensation to those affected by the Highland-area spill. Those who have questions or would like to submit a claim should call 888-557-5216. The company said it is addressing claims as they are received. The company has also set up a website devoted to the spill. It is www.mp29response.com.

Reporters Elizabeth Donald and Mark Hodapp contributed to this report.

This story was originally published July 22, 2015 at 4:13 AM with the headline "Company says Highland oil spill cleanup 95 percent complete; Silver Lake reopens."