Another Oil Spill, Even Closer To Home

By Marcus Gilmer in News on Sep 10, 2010 2:00PM

To call it in an "oil spill" in the same sense of the Gulf of Mexico disaster is hyperbole, but one can't help but ignore the fact that a spill in Romeoville that occurred yesterday is from a pipeline run by Enbridge, the same company who's in charge of the pipeline that spilled 800,000 gallons (~19,500 barrels) along the Kalamazoo River in Michigan in late July. Officials estimate around 2,000 gallons of crude oil may have spilled from a pipeline in suburban Romeoville yesterday, a rate of 50 gallons per minute with the leak taking 40 minutes to close.

While there were no injuries reported from the leak and no oil, that anyone knows of, had made it into any sewers, a large portion of the oil was contained in a retention pond behind the spill site. Romeoville Fire Department public information officer Brandon Street estimated clean-up will take about a month but put this sunshine spin on the situation: "They got on it pretty quickly, and they've been able to mitigate it; contain it to one area. It has not leeched into the rivers, lakes or streams or anything of that nature, so it's going quite well." Consider us relieved. Of course, officials are still on the scene, a good 20 hours after the spill was first reported. No cause has been given yet for the spill but Enbridge has promised they'll look into it. Meanwhile, it's just another spill you can add to Enbridge's growing, inauspicious list as the leak and subsequent shutdown could cause a rise in oil prices.