(4/22/99)
An accidental oil spill prompted an oil company crew to deliberately set
off a spectacular fire a couple of days ago inside a National Forest!
Although that fire destroyed a couple of dozen trees on the North Slope of
the Uintah Mountains, Forest Service officials say the company did the right
thing.
Environment Specialist John Hollenhorst has the exclusive story.
On day three of the cleanup, crude oil is still burning in the Wasatch-Cache
National Forest.
In chilly mountain air, it's a thick gooey sludge, too thick to easily
penetrate the ground.
Now it's hissing and burning on purpose. Crews are setting it afire to get
rid of it before it does more environmental damage.
The mess started when an emergency valve opened at this well site,
pouring oil into a buried pipeline that, unfortunately, was wide open at the
other end.
Gene Holt, of Merit Energy Co., says, "The problem here is that we bought the
property from somebody else, and there were some lines in the ground that we
didn't know about."
It's hard to say exactly how much oil was spilled. The company believes it was
about 10 barrels. That's a little over 400 gallons.
The main spill area is now covered with fresh snow. But the crude spread in
a trail 15 feet wide. It ran 150 yards across this meadow and into the woods.
The company dug trenches to cut off the flow.
Holt says, "Decided to burn it. And the forest service was here on location.
And they agreed with it too."
When they lit it up, a wall of flame raced across the meadow and into the
woods, jumping the first cutoff trench.
Roger Kesterson, of the U.S. Forest Service explains, "It climbed the tree
branches, and got up into the crowns and torched them all. But it wasn't that
significant of a flame."
Holt says, "We came about 20 yards further down than we originally thought we
would. But we knew we'd burn some trees in order to clean it up."
In all, about 25 trees burned. Kesterson says, "When we get the
opportunity, the company will be back in there, disking and seeding and
fertilizing. And I think it will repair itself quite well, rapidly."
Overall, the Forest Service gives the company high marks for containing the
spill quickly.
