Coast Guard: Most fuel spilled from tank farm unrecoverable
Less than 20 per cent of a 461,000-gallon (1.7-million-litre) gasoline spill in Texas during Hurricane Harvey was recovered by the company responsible, while the rest evaporated or soaked into the ground, a U.S. Coast Guard official said Thursday.
Only a minor amount of the spill appeared to have escaped past containment berms at the Magellan Midstream Partners storage tank farm in the Houston suburb of Galena Park, said Coast Guard Lt. Commander Jarod Toczko. It’s the largest spill reported to date from the storm that made landfall in Texas last month.
The Oklahoma-based company reported recovering about 2,000 barrels, or 84,000 gallons (320,000 litres), of gasoline in the days after the Aug. 31 spill, Toczko said. It’s unknown how much of the fuel evaporated and how much seeped into the ground.
“We know how much spilled, but it’s difficult to say the exact amount evaporated,” he said.