At approximately 6:30 am, Wednesday, March 19th, the Partin No. 5 Oil Well caught fire during drilling operations northwest of Oliver Springs, Tenn. Apparently, a large zone of natural gas was hit and the blow off preventer failed resulting in a substantial fire and release of approximately 2000 barrels of crude oil to a secondary retention pond. According to TDEC a small amount of crude oil found its way to an unnamed tributary of Indian Creek. Local fire and hazmat arrived on scene, placed boom at several locations along the creek, and evacuated a few homes in the vicinity of the well. The responsible party, Walden Resources has hired Wild Well Services of Houston,Texas to assess and extinguish the fire at the well head. The OSC continues to work within a unified command structure with the local EMA coordinator, TDEC and TEMA. EPA, with START contractor support, will conduct air monitoring and site oversight as needed throughout the response.
At 0800am, the OSC, Anderson Co EMA, Tenn Oil and Gas Jeff Laxton and EPA technical support conducted a RRT conference call with members of the RRT. The previous day the RP, Walden Resources, was discovered dumping fire fighting water saturated with crude oil from the well fire to a pasture upgradient of the site less than one mile from the site. START contractors photo documented the release areas in which it was obvious that large surface areas of oil and water mix from the fire and retention ponds had been dumped onto the pasture less than 60-80 yards from Wrights Creek. The OSC discused the dumping activities by the rp and received support from the RRT members to issue a CWA Section 311 Federal Assumption Letter.
After the RRT briefing, the OSC served the RP, Dan Potts of Walden Resources with the notification and was encouraged to review it with his attorney.
The OSC called NPFCs Miguel Bella requesting additional funds ($200K) to conduct clean up activities. Verbal authorization was granted. Operations began planning clean up activities,
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