Around 1330 hours on August 17th, a tanker truck carrying biodiesel fuel rolled over on Highway 82 southwest of downtown Greenville, MS. The truck released into the drainage ditch approximately 3,200 gallons of biodiesel, roughly half of the total load. The flow then traveled over ground until it hit a slough, the headwaters of Steele Bayou. Steele Bayou empties into the Yazoo River, which is a tributary of the Mississippi River. Steele Bayou is a "water of the US" under CWA and OPA. Based on the volume released, both the EPA and the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality launched responders. The responsible party was involved in an altercation with the responding emergency services, and was either asked to leave or left the scene of his own volition. As a result, no response was undertaken to recover the fuel from the truck or the slough. Based on this lack of response, MDEQ initiated a response by hiring USES. Based on conversations with MDEQ subsequent to that, OSC Berry offered to provide a Pollution Removal Funding Authorization (PRFA) to MDEQ to pay for the response.
