Calling All Piggers! Please analyze this spill response
This is a shout-out to my fellow Piggers to analyze the response to a spill that occured at the University of Florida.
Important: Show respect for the workers involved as you share your constructive thoughts.
THE EQUIPMENT
A street sweeper
THE SPILL
Several gallons of oil. Call it seven gallons—I’ll change that if anyone has inside information on street sweepers. It may actually have been hydraulic fluid, because a hydraulic leak is mentioned.
THE LOCATION
A public road and sidewalk
THE EXTENT
It didn’t reach grass or sewer drains
TIME ELAPSED BEFORE RESPONSE
3 hours
THE RESPONSE MATERIALS
Two dumptruck loads of sand. Call it 2500 pounds.
TIME INVOLVED IN CLEANUP
7 am through the afternoon. Call it eight hours.
THE RESIDUAL MATERIAL
The oil-and-sand mixture was gathered in four 55-gallon drums. Call it 200 gallons of material (in case the last drum wasn’t filled).
Say that the responders had this to do all over again. Or say that they want to prepare for the same kind of spill. What do you recommend?
Thanks.
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January 29th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
To save hours of labor, equipment and not to mention backs, there is only one answer: One Word: New Pig Spill barriers, socks, pillows and mat! And PPE of course!!!
January 29th, 2009 at 5:43 pm
I’m really not sure what you want, so here’s my shot:
Here’s a link to a map of the spill. http://www.facilities.ufl.edu/cp/pdf/Historic%20brochure%202007.pdf
The link gives a sense of scale.
After reading the article, I get a different picture than what I had strictly from your description. I’d stick with several gallons, guessing at seven could shoot your credibility if it’s too high – and I’m not sure it matters to the story. Actually fewer gallons is a more impactful story than more gallons. I wouldn’t make up any numbers. 2500 pounds of sand/soil is less than 1 dump truck…2 dump trucks sounds (and is) bigger than 2500 pounds. I can put more than that in a small trailer behind my pickup truck.
I can’t discern if this spill was attended by the driver at 4 am or if it broke, got abandoned and the spill was cleaned later. Is ounds like it was a 4 am breakdown that leaked/dripped/drained till 7 a.m. when cleanup began. A couple of socks and a pad would have made all the differenc in the world, but at 4a.m. the driver may or may not have even known he had a leak. And he may or may not have even been driving it at the time, they may be guessing that the leak startd in the middle of the night – hard to say given the info.
I’d be careful about making judgments. If it was dark, no one knew about the spill till 7 a.m., it was a trickle spanning 1 or 2 blocks, then 2 dump trucks of sand might have been the best method. But 2 dump trucks of sand doesn’t equate to 4 55 gallon drums. We need to maintain credibility in these things. Spill responders have to deal with whatever they are left with, sometimes it’s weather, gravel, people, etc. I’d think the best answer we could suggest here would be to have a kit available with some socks and pads to prevent the spread when possible as a first line of defense
Last comment: I had to refresh 3 times to get a legible reading of the 2 words required to submit this to avoid spam. I’d be angry if I was on your blog, took the time to respond, then couldn’t officially respond because the anti-spam tool was a hassle. Hopefully these are legible now, I’m not really sure still.
January 30th, 2009 at 8:30 am
Kevin and Tim, thanks very much for the replies.
Tim, as you say, my numbers are only guesses and may not add up and may not be necessary. I arrived at them like so: If the crew did collect about 200 gallons of sands (3 drums and part of another), they must have started with close to that amount of sand. I found a couple of references that sand weighs about 13 pounds per gallon and I rounded it to 2,500 lbs. I agree that that that wouldn’t make for two dumptruckfuls, as the news story said, so something doesn’t add up. Maybe they meant little trucks/carts, like you sometimes see on a golf course.
Also as you say, we can’t really second-guess the approach taken without having been there. On the other hand, it’s fun and instructive, like Click and Clack diagnosing cars from radio descriptions. Kinda.
I’ll see if there’s an alternative spam prevention tool. This one irritates me too. Thanks.
January 30th, 2009 at 9:57 am
From the view of a trained hazmat responder, I have to give them credit for using available materials to get the job done before this spill did reach a drain, water body or soil.
However, from an enviornmental view; now they’ve got four drums of waste that need to be handled properly – and that will most likely be landfilled because sand doesn’t leave you with many other good disposal options.
If the University had a stock of absorbent mats and socks – from New Pig, of course – they could have helped minimize the volume of spill related waste to less than one drum, if properly used; with the added bonus of being able to fuels blend or incinerate the wastes, resulting in less bulk at the local landfill.
January 30th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
Given that clean-up started 3 hours after the spill it’s very likely that the hydraulic fluid was thinly spread over a large area thus requiring a granular absorbent with a fine particle size to absorb the oil off a rough road and sidewalk surface. Shop Dri or Pig Dri deployed from a bag directly onto the spill area would have resulted in a significant reduction of material for disposal. Cleaning up an oily sheen is not very easy but Shop Dri and Pig Dri are up to the challenge! Sand … unfortunately is not a very good absorbent but very cheap and abundant in Florida. The big cost now will be disposing of all that sand.
The amount of sand reported sounds funky. Two truckloads would never fit into 4 – 55 gallon drum plus two truck loads is overkill for a 7 gallon spill.
The best result for spill response in this case would have been to be prepared with one of New Pig’s small portable spill kits easily stored behind a drivers seat.
February 2nd, 2009 at 2:54 pm
Due to large spill location, a loose absorbent was key in keeping the spill from reaching bodies of water, soil, etc. For future spills or for one like this one, they can keep a few bags or a pallet of PIG DRI on hand or close by (such as town or municipal facilities) and this type of loose absorbent could be easily removed using the street sweeper. This product can be incinerated so it will be reduced in quantity for disposal thereby saving money as opposed to the sand. They can also keep a small/medium spill kit on hand, in the truck or again at the municipal facilities for future spill response. They seemed to do well with cleaning of the spill with what they had on hand.
February 4th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
How I would have responded given your information (7-gallon spill):
(2) Personnel
(1) Response truck
(1) Pressure washer w/drum mount vacuum
Proper PPE
(1) 55-gallon drum
Cleanup would have taken 4 hours, drum containing liquid waste would have been transported to a proper TSDF and recycled.
February 4th, 2009 at 5:29 pm
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