A response crew is working to clean up a diesel fuel spill in the Northwest Arctic village of Selawik.
According to a release from the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), the spill originated last Wednesday at a fuel tank for the village’s water treatment plant.
Officials say the fuel was transferred from a city fuel tank to the plant tank, though the transfer was left unattended for about seven and a half hours before the operator was alerted to the spill and shut off the valve at roughly 10 p.m. The spill was reported to DEC at roughly 1:30 a.m. Thursday.
The city tank holds just under 46,000 gallons of diesel and the water plant tank has a capacity of roughly 4,000 gallons. DEC’s Sarah Moore says officials are still trying to determine the total amount of diesel spilled.
“We know that there’s still 35,000 gallons approximately left in the tank following the release, and that source tank itself wasn’t damaged. It was an overfill due to transferring,” Moore said. “So we know that 35,000 gallons is still in the tank and is not threatening to release at this time. So we have a ballpark estimate, but are still working on some more concrete numbers about the volume spilled.”
A response crew has cleared 750 gallons of diesel so far, but due to fresh snow cover, DEC officials say it’s difficult to determine the total amount of diesel or the extent of the spill at this time.
“It can be a bit of a double edged sword,” Moore said. “It takes more work to find out where the diesel is because you have to dig holes in the snow and see if you can find it, but it also helps keep it more contained.”
The spill is about 610 feet from the Selawik River, a water source for the village.
Coast Guard officials arrived in Selawik on Tuesday to help provide safety and response equipment. Moore says, in keeping with pandemic safety mandates, the only people doing the cleanup are people from Selawik.
This story has been updated with comments from the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation.
