On September 9, a pipeline burst in Shelby County, Alabama, dumping over 6,000 barrels (approximately 250,000 gallons) of gasoline. That line normally carries 1.3 million barrels a day. The Colonial Pipeline, which is actually based in Alpharetta, Georgia, operates over 5,500 miles of pipeline that transports oil to over 50 million Americans everywhere between Houston, Texas and New York City, New York.
The cause of the spill hasn’t been found yet, and the Colonial Pipeline has shut down Line One, which runs from the Gulf to East coast. Since the pipeline was built in 1963, it’s not hard to see how there could be a fault. Currently, Colonial Pipeline has 500 employees working to fix the pipe and clean up the spill. Line Two is now being used to deliver gasoline, when it was used to transport diesel and jet fuel.
“We have a contingency plan where we have moved gasoline over to the other line it normally carries diesel and fuel jet and we're moving gasoline to all points on our system,” Steve Baker with Colonial Pipeline said to Fox 5.
Conveniently, most of the oil leaked into a nearby mining retention pond, and workers are "skimming the pond to remove the gasoline." That would be a good trick, except too bad that just "skimming the pond" won’t even begin to fix the problem.
The Cahaba River is under threat of being contaminated, and local residents are worried about their water being contaminated.
To add to the ripple effect, gas prices have jumped five to twenty cents a gallon, and fuel is becoming harder to find in Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina and North Carolina. I speak for Alpharetta when I confirm that gas prices certainly jumped, and pump lines were out on roads.
On Thursday, Governor Nathan Deal declared a state of emergency across Georgia due to the gas shortage. He also lifted the rules about how long fuel truckers can work, so they are able to transport more gas to meet demand.
While most people see the event as an inconvenience, it could really end up causing way more environmental damage than we realize. The spill has already caused massive damage to the local water system that it leaked into, and now, the best we can hope for is that it doesn’t make it to the main river near the retention pond. While sources are claiming that the gasoline is contained in the retention pond, that will not be true for long. The gas will soon find its way to other water sources, and from there it will contaminate people’s water source and impact the local wildlife and ecosystem. It’s a disaster waiting to become a catastrophe.
