On September 25, 2023, at approximately 12:18 p.m., the
National Response Center received a report of a 150-barrel (bbl) crude oil
spill from a pipeline onto soil. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) deployed an EPA On-scene Coordinator (OSC) and its Superfund Technical
Assessment and Response Team (START) contractor to the site at approximately
4:00 p.m. The EPA, local fire department, Oklahoma Water Resources Board, and
emergency response crews from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration
responded to the spill. Energy Transfer, the responsible party (RP), reported
that a 16-inch pipeline carrying sweet crude had been struck with an excavator
by the land developer’s sub-contractor.
The spill was reported to the RP around 10:50 a.m. The RPs’
emergency response sub-contractor was on-site by 12:00 p.m. to begin the
cleanup. The pipeline was not actively pumping crude at the time of the
puncture but was under pressure. The pipeline punctured runs from Cushing,
Oklahoma, to three possible locations. At the time of the break, the pipeline
was lined out to the Texas Gulf Coast. The damaged line was repaired by using a
leak repair clamp, which was secured around 1:00 a.m. As of September 26, at
11:00 a.m., Energy Transfer reported they had recovered approximately 2,400 bbl
of oil. Stained soil and minor oil will be collected under the oversight of the
Oklahoma Corporation Commission (OCC). Since the afternoon of September 26,
there is no threat to navigable water remaining.
Air Monitoring
EPA conducted handheld air monitoring for total volatile
organic compounds (VOCs) and benzene September 25-26.
The site-specific air monitoring procedure was to measure
total VOC using a MultiRAE monitor. If the sustained VOC level was above 1 part
per million (ppm), another monitoring tool called an UltraRAE was used to
measure the specific chemical benzene. VOCs above 1ppm were detected at five
locations of the 43 monitored. One of those elevated VOC detections was
observed in the adjacent neighborhood, and the benzene level for that detection
was 0.03 ppm. The remaining four elevated VOC readings were immediately
adjacent to the spill recovery location.
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