LEONARD GRAY / L’Observateur / October 18, 2000

GARYVILLE – Investigators at Marathon/Ashland Refinery are still trying to find the cause of Friday’s oil gas spill at their docks, a spokesman said.

Gretchen Plewak said a barge released a small quantity of gas oil, an intermediate product of crude oil, which was being brought to the refinery for further processing. An estimated 2,520 gallons, or 60 42-gallon barrels,were released in the spill from the barge owned by Coastal Towing of Houston.

Refinery emergency response teams, some 80 persons altogether, joined specialty contractors in containing and cleaning up the spill.

Plewak said all but traces of the product have been cleaned up, using vacuum trucks, absorbent booms and skimmers. The mixture was returned to therefinery for processing and, she added, no long-term environmental impact is expected.

Greg Wilkins, an environmental safety engineer for Marathon, said the impact of the spill was reduced through the actions of wind, current and wave action which pushed the product upriver of the dock toward a half-mile stretch of the east bank shoreline.

There, container booms were stretched out to keep the product in a contained area, while absorbent booms were laid along the shoreline. As waveaction swept the shore, water would leach out the oily mixture and bring it out to the absorbent booms.

Wilkins said all the free oil was picked up by late Saturday evening, and monitoring of the affected area has been constant since then.

Representatives from the U.S. Coast Guard and the Louisiana Oil SpillCoordinators walked the beach on inspection tours Sunday and Monday and reported that Marathon had done a good job at cleaning the beach.

By Monday, only Garner Environmental Services remained on the scene to assist with the cleanup.

The refinery regularly accepts the partially-processed crude from other refineries, including other Marathon refineries, for completion of the process toward gasoline.

“We have a refinery unit that takes more feed stock than we can produce,” Wilkins said, “so we buy it on the market.”There was no risk to the St. John Parish waterworks intake system, basedon the spill’s location. In addition, air monitoring continued throughout theincident, with no abnormal readings.

Wilkins said the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality was expected to send representatives for further inspection this week.

“A full investigation is under way,” Plewak added, “however, our first priority is to protect the environment and return the affected area to its original condition.”

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