The incident involves an ongoing discharge of crude oil into Boyd’s Creek and the Barren River Lake which is a navigable waterway. This ongoing removal action was continued under an Interagency Agreement between EPA Region 4 and the Tennessee Valley Authority. Funding was obtained under the OSC’s OPA authority and through support from the National Pollution Fund Center in December, 2008.
Ongoing operation and maintenance (O&M) of the oil collection system is performed by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) under an interagency agreement with EPA Region 4. Normally, TVA visits the site once per month or more frequently depending upon specific maintenance activities. These O&M activities are expected to continue into the foreseeable future. The costs associated with these activities average approximately $1,500 per month.
This report summarizes TVA O&M activities at the Boyds Creek Site from Nov 2010 through Nov 2011. This work is performed under Interagency Agreement (IA) DW-64-92319301 between EPA Region 4 and TVA. TVA conducted 12 monthly site visits and collected 1732 gallons of oil. The crude oil is sold to a local vendor and the resulting funds are credited toward the cost of operation.
Conditions at the Site were found to be normal throughout the past year with the following exceptions:
during the December 2010 visit, the SCADA alarm system was found to be off and a local electrical contractor determined that the power inverter to the system was malfunctioning. It was replaced.
During the February 2011 site visit, one of the exterior discharge lines from the oil collection sump was cracked which allowed a minor amount of water to discharge to surrounding soil. No oil was observed in the surrounding soils and the line was repaired.
During the July 2011 site visit, the stairs, handrails and pipe support rack for the oil lines to the oil collection sump building had deteriorated and were repaired.
During the August 2011 site visit, the SCADA controller malfunctioned and a local electrical contractor determined that the SCADA board had malfunctioned and needed replacement. TVA’s Tim Hollman suggested replacing the SCADA board with a web based monitoring system and the OSC agreed. New electrical boards and additional hardware have been ordered and should be installed soon.
The accounting of expenditures is an estimate based on figures known to the OSC at the time this report was written. The cost accounting provided in this report does not necessarily represent an exact monetary figure which the government may include in any claim for future cost recovery.
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