United States Environmental Protection Agency
Region X
POLLUTION REPORT

Subject: 

At approximately 0040 hrs on August 1st, a 40,000 gallon underground storage tank belonging to AT&T began pumping diesel fuel into three 250 gallon above-ground day tanks.  Over the next six hours 15,000 gallons of fuel overflowed from one tank onto the floor and flowed into the storm water system of the city of Bothell and into soils next to the tanks.

Fuel flowed down the storm water system but halted prior to reaching a storm water retention pond and wetland.  At this time there is no evidence that fuel has left the stormwater system.

EPA, Department of Ecology, and ATT remain in Unified Command.  The city of Bothell attends all unified command and have provided valuable support.

Media interest as of late has been light.  OSC Smith updates Tony Brown, our PIO, on progress daily.  Early on he formed a JIC with Ecology and ATT.

Storm Drain area of concern - Polishing work is needed on the main storm drain line.

Work is needed to get to a suspected small pocket of diesel that is trapped at the end of the line by the high water level of the pond.  The pond level is preventing diesel from reaching the pond.  Essentially the pipe and pond are serving as a type of "P" trap.  We want to work carefully to not send diesel into the pond.  The pond has a hard boom as a precaution.

Facility area of concern - Began locating critical infrastructure and geo-probing to delineate source of diesel on Tuesday afternoon and is continuing on Wednesday.

The storm drain on facility property has been isolated to avoid any further contamination of storm drain on North Creek Parkway due to clean up operation on site.  Upstream water has been diverted.  AT&T will treat upstream water before bypassing property and dumping in main storm drain.  This diversion will begin once we clear the main storm drain.

Wednesday we will jet rod the main storm drain on North Creek Parkway.

Wednesday afternoon, divers are going to be sent into the last section of storm drain where we believe is a pocket of trapped fuel.  Absorbent sweeps have been snagged by something which the divers will remove.

By Friday, we will begin peeling back asphalt and hauling away contaminated soil/pea gravel.

By Friday, we hope to have numbers on amount of fuel recovered from storm drains.  Samples of fuel/water mixture recovered have been sent to a laboratory for analysis.

Our operational period has been extended.  Our next Unified Command meeting will be Friday 0900.

Ecology emergency response will end once storm drains have been cleared.  Facility clean up will be monitored by Ecology under a Voluntary Cleanup Program.

EPA will stay on-scene at least until concentrated pockets of diesel under the parking lot have been discovered and removed.  Once these sources of diesel have been removed, there should be no further addition of diesel to the ground water.

Decision on further EPA involvement will depend on how much diesel is unaccounted for.

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