Signs 'good' for creek, marsh after spill
3,000 litres of gasoline washed through sewers following accident at Mountain gas station
Paul Legall, The Hamilton Spectator, Saturday, March 13, 2004
Cathie Coward, the Hamilton Spectator
There are no signs of ailing wildlife after a large gasoline spill but inspections will continue over the weekend.Environmental inspectors will be watching the fish and birds in Chedoke Creek and Cootes Paradise for any signs of distress as a result of a large gasoline spill on Hamilton Mountain.
Mark Dunn, district supervisor for the Ministry of the Environment, said there's a good chance a portion of the 3,000 litres of gasoline made it through the storm sewers down the Niagara escarpment to the environmentally sensitive watershed in west Hamilton.
The spill occurred at an Esso service station on Upper James at about 11 p.m. Thursday, when a fuel truck jackknifed and ruptured one of its two fuel tanks.
Cootes Paradise, a large marshland and bird sanctuary that forms part of the Royal Botanical Gardens, is one of the Steel City's most popular recreational spots. It provides a year-round habitat for a variety of waterfowl, including a rare colony of cormorants, and has more than 300 species of birds living there or migrating through.
"We can make the assumption some fuel did get there, but was it enough to harm the fish and wildlife?" Dunn said yesterday. "The signs so far are good. More than 12 hours after the spill, we haven't seen any signs of damage, dead fish or struggling waterfowl."
Dale Millar, superintendent of regulatory services with the city public works department, is also optimistic that no serious harm will come to the environment.
"It had a potential of being a big problem. But it was handled well and the risks were minimized," he said.
Dunn said inspectors will continue, however, to watch Chedoke Creek and the marshland during the weekend for any signs of harm to animals. The main concern now is there might still be pockets of gasoline trapped in the storm sewer that will break free and rush down the escarpment into the watershed.
Candace Sellar, an environmental emergency officer with Environment Canada, was patrolling the creek with a digital camera yesterday looking for dead fish or birds in distress.
"Our concern is the depositing of gasoline into the creek and the potential impact on fish and wildlife," she said at the scene.
Dunn believes a number of factors have combined to lessen the potential for disaster. Within hours of the spill, a containment boom was installed in Chedoke Creek which stopped most of the gasoline from getting into the marsh.
A vacuum truck was also used to siphon off about 2,000 litres of fuel from a collection point near the boom about one kilometre from the marsh.
Dunn also believes some of the gasoline had time to evaporate or disperse during the five to six kilometres it travelled through the storm sewer system to reach the boom, placed at the bottom of Glen Road near the Main Street overpass on Highway 403.
He suggested it would have been a much greater environmental disaster if a fuel truck had veered off the highway and dumped its load directly into Cootes Paradise.
The spill occurred while a private truck pulling two large trailers was delivering gasoline to the Esso station. While manoeuvring around the service station property, the trailers apparently jackknifed and collided, causing a large rupture in one of the tanks.
After an initial response from the fire department, two private companies were brought in to install the boom and collect as much gasoline as possible. During the first hours, Millar said there was a "slight risk" of an explosion because of the gasoline fumes inside the sewer system.
He added the risk was eliminated by having the fire department pump water through the sewer to flush out the gasoline before the fumes had a chance to build up.
He said he's confident that most of the gasoline was blocked by the containment boom and little, if any, reached the ecologically sensitive marshland.
Millar has no idea how much the spill and cleanup will cost. But he added the city will ultimately try to recover the costs from the service station owner and the trucking company. It hasn't been determined yet whether they'll be facing any charges.
Mountain storm sewers empty into harbour
When it rains, it pours -- into Hamilton's creeks, wetlands and the harbour.
Most of the city's storm water sewers empty directly into the city's waterways. That's why 3,000 litres of the gas ended up in Chedoke Creek headed for Cootes Paradise five kilometres away.
On the Mountain, sanitary and stormwater sewer systems are separate. Flushed toilets and sink gray water heads to the city's treatment plants. But the city does not treat storm water, so most Mountain storm sewers empty into the harbour.
When the spill occurred, the gas poured into street catchbasins at Upper James and Hester streets. Emergency crews flushed the sewer with water for over nine hours to rinse the volatile gas out and prevent buildup of explosive fumes.
That system flows down Upper James, heads west on Richwill Road, jogs onto Bendamere Avenue and Delmar Drive, and runs under Hillfield-Strathallan College to Fennell Avenue.
The sewer empties out over the escarpment at the Chedoke waterfall at Scenic Drive and Calquhoun Crescent.
"Spills like this are a wake-up call," said Marilyn Baxter, manager of Bay Area Restoration Council. "Industrial activity does affect the natural environment and what's very illustrative is that the spill wound up all the way down in Cootes Paradise."
