On August 26, 2016, the Colorado Springs Fire Department (CSFD) reported an accident involving a fuel tanker belonging to Manweiler Transport. The accident happened at approximately 0400 that day near 911 Motor City Drive in Colorado Springs, El Paso County, Colorado. CSFD estimated from the size of the tanker and the amount of recovered material that nearly 6000 gallons of unleaded gasoline and 2000 gallons of diesel fuel were released. CSFD reported that all but a few hundred gallons of this released material had entered into a storm drain that empties into Bear Creek just above its confluence with Fountain Creek.  Free product, sheen and a fish kill was witnessed in Fountain Creek.

Colorado Springs Utilities (CSU) closed the intake to the Fountain Mutual Irrigation Canal located near CSU's Las Vegas Water Resource Recovery Facility.  CSU also notified downstream agricultural water users to close and/or monitor their intakes.  Colorado Springs Utilities did not identify any downstream public water user intakes that required notification.

See Pollution Report #1 for additional details on Operations that occurred August 26-30, 2016,

EPA's team collected visible observations and samples from several downstream water intakes and boom locations on Friday, August 26 and Saturday, August 27, 2016, to determine the presence or absence of petroleum hydrocarbons at the time the locations were visited. The samples were analyzed for both Gasoline Range Organics (GRO) and Diesel Range Organics (DRO). The preliminary laboratory data shows that hydrocarbons were detected between the location of the spill and Fountain Creek Regional Park on the first day.  The highest results on August 26 were DRO at 3.27 mg/l at Fountain Creek Regional Park and GRO at 1.48 mg/l at the closed intake to the Fountain Mutual Irrigation Canal. On August 27, these levels had reduced to 0.2 mg/l and 0.182 mg/l respectively.  Little or no hydrocarbons were detected downstream of Fountain Creek Regional Park on either day.  These observations and samples confirm that the spill did not have a lasting impact on the use of Fountain Creek for irrigation and that all diversions can be reopened.

The results from the lab are posted at https://epaosc.org/ManweilerTruckingSpill and are also accessible in EPA's web mapping tool: https://r8.ercloud.org/ManweilerTruckingSpill.  

 Here are some tips for using the web map:

1. When you open the link, you are viewing the mapping tool used by EPA’s field operations. The operational layers that can be used accessed in the map are listed on the left side of the screen. 

2. You can navigate data types and decipher symbols on the map by clicking on the arrow symbols before each operational layer.  You can also turn layers on and off by using the check boxes. Note that if you are trying to display layers, you will need to  check the boxes next to both the data type (such as “Site Data”) and the layer that you want to display.

3. Functionalities such as draw and measure are provided as icons located in the upper left part of the screen.

4. Click on symbols and/or areas of the map to obtain additional information.  When you do so, a pop-up window will appear and you may have to use the navigation arrows at the top of the window to scroll through multiple pop-ups.

EPA will close the site and archive the data that was collected.

Lisa McClain-Vanderpool is the designated EPA Public Information Officer (PIO).

Belfor Environmental (response contractor)

Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment

Colorado Springs Fire

Colorado Springs Utilities

Colorado Springs Office of Emergency Management

Custom Environmental Services (response contractor)

El Paso County Health Department

El Paso County Office of Emergency Management

Pueblo County Sheriff

Pueblo Fire

United States Coast Guard

United States Environmental Protection Agency

None.

CSFD: Colorado Springs Fire Department

CSU: Colorado Springs Utilities

FOSC: Federal On Scene Coordinator

START: Superfund Technical Assistance and Response Team

A map of the response can be viewed at: 

https://r8.ercloud.org/manweilertruckingspill/