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Emergency Response to an Oil Pipeline Leak
An oil pipeline leak in a marsh on the edge of the San Francisco Bay posed numerous problems for a major pipeline company. The top three issues that had to be addressed by the company were:
Containment of the Oil Spill
Mitigation of the Environmental Damage
Repair of the pipeline
As part of the standard emergency action, the company installed booms across the marsh and began vacuuming the surface oil. This served to contain a majority of the spill and reduce the volume of oil in the marsh. However, these actions were not 100% effective. The oil continued to seep from the ground requiring more vacuum trucks than could be practically put into the area of operations. Nor did these tactics begin to address the important issue of repairing the pipeline.
The company called Clear Creek Systems, Inc. to perform onsite water treatment of the contaminated water. Clear Creek Systems, Inc. handled all the water treatment needs for the project. They based this action on both practical and economic considerations. Large amounts of water were drawn into the vacuum trucks with the oil. On an ongoing basis, it was much more economical to treat the water onsite instead of haul it to a disposal facility. It also quickly became apparent that it was not feasible to get enough vacuum trucks into the area of operations.
The Department of Fish and Game wanted a treatment system that was capable of treating the contaminated water drawn from the spill area to below drinking water levels. This was no simple task. The contaminated water had very high levels of particulates in addition to both emulsified and free oil. Clear Creek Systems, Inc. brought to bear its experience in both particulate and hydrocarbon filtration. Experience dictated that no single treatment technology would be feasible. By using a series of filtration technologies, a complete system was put in place that treated the particulate and hydrocarbons to below drinking water standards. It was decided to locate the system alongside the spill area. Pumps drew the contaminated water directly from the spill area (thus eliminating the continual need for vacuum trucks) into the treatment system. After processing, the treated water was discharged downgradient of the spill area.
This system proved invaluable when the company was ready to begin repair operations. Excavation required dewatering of a sufficient contaminated area in order to expose the pipeline around the clock. The system had to treat as much as 5 barrels per minute (approximately 200 gallons per minute) of oily water.
In all, the system treated over 76,000 barrels (3.2 million gallons) of oily water. The system gave the pipeline company tremendous operational flexibility without having a fleet of vacuum trucks standing by—and without the potential transportation liability. The treatment costs were a fraction of comparable costs to haul the oily water away from the site.
