A crude oil spill was discovered on Monday in Hamilton County, Ohio’s Oak Glen Nature Preserve. The man who first noticed the spill called it “absolutely terrible,” the Cincinnati Enquirer reports. Officials estimate that approximately 10,000 gallons of oil leaked from a pipeline that stretches from Texas to Michigan.
The 20-inch pipeline, owned by Sunoco Logistics Partners LP, was shut down at around 12:20 am local time on Tuesday, according to WCPO Cincinnati. Hazmat crews with the Mid Valley Pipeline Company, a division of Sunoco, were called out to repair the pipeline on Tuesday.
Oak Glen Nature Preserve is one of Hamilton County park system’s four conservation areas. The leak occurred about a quarter of a mile from the Great Miami River and some oil reached a wetland a mile away. Crews were preparing to vacuum the wetland, located 20 miles north of Cincinnati, on Tuesday, Reuters reports.
The Mid Valley pipeline is part of Sunoco’s Midwest pipeline system, which runs about 1,000 miles from Texas through Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Ohio and ends in Michigan. The pipeline system primarily provides oil to refineries in the Midwest.
A citizen discovered the crude oil leak on Monday. He told a 911 dispatcher that he smelled “a fuel, oily smell,” and said that when he looked over the bank, he noticed that one of the waterways had “oil spilled all in it.” He described the spill as “terrible,” according to the Enquirer. “It made me sick when I saw it,” he told the dispatcher.
A park ranger told WCPO that residents started noticing an odor several days ago.
“We’re going to see many more catastrophes like this because of cutbacks of safety regulations by politicians who put ideology and profit over human life,” said Mike Papantonio, host of Ring of Fire and a senior partner with the Florida law firm of Levin, Papantonio, Thomas, Mitchell, Rafferty, and Proctor. “In the past two months alone, we have seen numerous substantial oil and coal ash spills across the United States.”
Image via: Ohio Explorer
Alisha is a writer and researcher with Ring of Fire. You can follow her on Twitter @childoftheearth.
