8,000-plus gallons of spilled gasoline a threat to Yukon tributary, EPA says

FAIRBANKS, Alaska (KTVF) - A gasoline spill near milepost 77 on the Dalton Highway merits a federal response, a May 1 on-site Environmental Protection Agency investigation found.

A Helzer Logistics truck tipped over on April 22, about 30 miles south of the Arctic Circle. The truck poured between 8,000 and 9,600 gallons of unleaded gasoline onto the surrounding surfaces, according to varying state and federal estimates.

“The initial report that we received is that there was no threat to any significant waterway — or even a small waterway that could lead to a large waterway — which would have meant that EPA would likely not be involved,” EPA Region 10 Public Affairs Specialist Bill Dunbar said Tuesday.

But the follow-up investigation discovered “evidence of fuel, with visible sheening, impacting an un-named tributary to the Ray River[,] which directly feeds into the Yukon River,” according to an EPA report.

The agency then issued a “notice of federal interest” to Helzer and took joint command over cleanup, contracting excavation services to remove all the soil affected by the gasoline.

“It’s not a very glamorous job to dig out soil,” Dunbar said. “We’ll dig until there’s nothing left.” Helzer will ultimately pay for the cleanup, he said, per federal law.

EPA has been coordinating the response with multiple state and federal agencies, including the Alaska Department of Transportation, the Bureau of Land Management and Alaska Department of Conservation (DEC).

DEC Northern Region On-Scene Coordinator Kimberley Maher said the spill is troubling both in terms of its magnitude and contents.

“That’s a really significant gasoline spill,” she told Newscenter Fairbanks. “We don’t typically handle spills like this. It’s something outside the regular repertoire of our spill response activities.”

Maher said gasoline is more volatile than diesel, or in other words: “It lights on fire quicker.”

The flashpoint, or the lowest temperature at which a substance can mix with air to create ignitable concentrations, is about 150 degrees Fahrenheit lower for gasoline than for diesel. A higher flashpoint entails a fluid is less flammable.

Maher said gasoline’s relative flammability derives from hydrocarbon chains that are shorter than diesel’s, making gasoline less viscous and easier to ignite. And benzene, one of the hydrocarbons found in higher concentrations in gasoline, poses particular risk to the environment due to its toxicity, she said.

“We don’t want migratory birds coming and landing in a pond that’s covered with gasoline sheening,” she said. “That will impact those birds.”

Officials confirmed no one was injured or killed in the April 22 incident. They expect on-site cleanup to last about two weeks.

But because of gasoline’s quick rate of evaporation, EPA isn’t expecting to recollect the all the spillage.

“I don’t know whether we’ll ever be able to determine exactly how much of the gasoline is actually recovered,” Dunbar said.

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