Leak at pumping station has oil running down eastern Madison County ditches

Crews are working to contain a spill that has sent an unknown amount of crude oil running down ditches in eastern Madison County that ultimately pour into Highland’s Silver Lake. But how far the oil had run was unclear.

The release happened at a pumping station near Baumann and Pocahontas roads, near the Bond-Madison county line, about five miles northeast of Highland.

“It occurred sometime over night and was discovered Friday morning. That’s all I know,” said Grantfork Fire Chief Alan Rode.

The pumping station, which is owned by Plains All American Pipeline L.P., is linked to a pipeline that connects an oil storage facility near Patoka, Ill., with the refinery in Wood River.

Calls placed to the company and the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency was not immediately returned.

Late Friday morning, clean-up crews were placing absorbent pads in the ditch on the east side of Baumann Road to catch some of the oil. Other devices used to catch floating oil floating were also placed about a mile north of the spill site, on the west side of the road, where the road ditches dump into a larger tributary of Little Silver Creek.

Due to recent rains, water was flowing in the ditches, and oil could be seen floating on top. The smell of oil was also in the air, although Madison County had recently oiled and chipped Baumann Road, which could have also been adding the the smell.

Larger pieces of equipment that workers had at the site included a track hoe, skid-steer loader and a boat with an outboard motor. However, the only piece of equipment not on a trailer was the skid-steer, which was sitting near the place where oil was flowing into the road ditch from a drainage pipe. It appeared some top soil near where the skid-steer was parked had been recently been excavated.

Around 12:30 p.m., two large semi-trucks pulling 21,000-gallon containers used to dispose of hazardous waste also arrived at the scene.

This story was originally published July 10, 2015 at 2:21 PM with the headline "Leak at pumping station has oil running down eastern Madison County ditches."