At approx. 1230 hrs. on 03/12/04, an approx. 500 ' wide breach spanning the BIG BAY LAKE earthen dam, located in Lamar, Co., Mississippi released an estimated 13.5 billion gallons of water from an 1100 acre lake rushing into rural, southern, Lamar County Mississippi. The raging flood waters completely destroyed or severely damaged approximately 78 homes. The surge, which at times, measured 30' tall, lifted cars, trucks and mobile homes into treetops. The ensuing flood stretched almost 15 miles towards the Pearl River in Marion Co. The flood zone was approximately 1/4 mi. wide. The lake completely drained in an estimated 3 hours. The State of Mississippi has declared a State of Emergency.
Under the Operations Section of the Unified Command Structure, the MSDEQ and USEPA, Mobile, AL outpost OSC, at the request of the MSDEQ, are currently directing environmental clean-up crews in the recovery of scattered hazardous materials which include various oils and chemicals. During the course of inital damage assessments several drums leaking an unknown oil and creating a heavy sheen, have been recovered from the Lower Little Creek. No heavy industry or large agricultural operations were impacted by this incident. No lives were lost and all residents have thus far been accounted for. Numerous livestock and domestic pets have been reported missing.
The Governor of Mississippi and the Director of the MEMA are expected to visit the area on 03/15/04.
On the morning of 3/16/04, USEPA, at the request of the MSEDQ, assumed the lead agency responsible for the clean up with the Big Bay Lake flood.EPA outposted OSC, in conjunction with MSDEQ, continued with recovery operations. OSC directed crews to finalize recovery of any remaining HAZMAT in zones 4 and 5. Once recovered and staged in an area that could be reached by truck, all containers were loaded onto a stake bed truck and hauled to a final stageing area owned by Lamar County.
Planned removal activities include the "HAZCATTING" of specific, unusal or suspect containers. In addition, compatibles oils and other chemicals will be bulked into appropriate waste streams. Once defined characterization, bulking and wasteprofiling is complete, clean up crews, under the direction of USEPA-OSC will explore disposal options for the various wastestreams generated.
The types of wastes recovered during this response include but are not limited to: Freon, Acetylene, various loose pack aerosols, paints,lead-acid batteries, pesticides, herbicides, anti-freeze, corrosives, waste oils, fuel oils, unknown drums, and Potassium Permanganate.
The activity mentioned above is scheduled to take place the week of 3/22/04.
Set up waste profile and conduct analysis for disposal. Clean up crews may have to return to the area to recover materials yet to be discovered as a result of this event.
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