Jan 9, 2008 6:19 pm US/Central
Soaking Up The Spill: Crews Contain Gas In River
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) ―
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Crews blocked the mouth of the sewer outlet with booms and absorbent bags that corralled gas into a pool and soaked it up.
CBS
Construction on the new Interstate 35W bridge was temporarily stopped Wednesday after hundreds of gallons of gasoline leaked from an overturned tractor-trailer and flowed toward the construction site.
The gasoline that got into the sewer system made a beeline about four miles underground to the Mississippi River. The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency first determined that the discharge outlet is right under the 10th Street Bridge. That's right where construction workers are bust on the new Interstate 35W bridge.
Construction on the new bridge was temporarily shut down because of all the foot traffic in the area.
Crews blocked the mouth of the sewer outlet with booms and absorbent bags that corralled gas into a pool and soaked it up. Machines called skimmers will suck up the gas until the entire spill is collected.
The Minneapolis Fire Department kept flushing out the sewer line with water. Vacuum trucks are sucking up more gas through hoses.
"We're going to continue to flush with the fire department until there's no gas in the sewer, we don't know how long it's going to take because it's a big sewer so it's going to take a lot of water to flush that out," said Jason Moran of the MPCA.
The gas did not get into the city's drinking water.
"The city of Minneapolis drinking water supply is upstream from the incident site so it's impossible for it to get into it," said Moran.
This is not being characterized as a major environmental problem, but MPCA says that probably hundreds of fish in the Mississippi will be killed. After the spill is cleaned up, water samples will be taken from the river.
(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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