WEDNESDAY, JUNE 24, 2015
CLARE COUNTY, MICHIGAN
Crews in Clare County had a big job on their hands tonight,
taking care of what came out of a rolled tanker truck.
The tanker leaked oil, diesel fuel and calcium chloride this
afternoon.
It closed part of the road and took crews about seven hours
to clean up.
The rollover happened around 1 p.m. this afternoon on
Garfield avenue near US-10 in the southwest corner of Clare County.
Crews say luckily, this spill was minimal.
There won't be any harmful effects on the environment.
But still, they dont' take these accidents lightly.
"We take everyone of these calls seriously, no matter
how much product was spilled or how much fuel is spilled because it doesn't
take long to migrate into the ecosystem and it can do a lot of damage,"
said Jerry Becker, the Clare County Emergency Manager.
This was the scene after a tanker truck lost control and
rolled onto it's side today.
It spilled about 75 gallons of calcium chloride and near 20
gallons of oil and diesel fuel into this area.
"This is a wetland behind us and it's a creek,"
Becker said. "So the main thing is, when something like this happens, is
to contain it in a small area."
The Garfield Township Fire Department was the first on scene
and they initially contained the leak.
Then an environmental crew cleaned the surface water, took
out the contaminated soil and replaced it.
"We don't want to see any damage and there's always an
overwhelming presence of people with environmental concerns who live in the
community and we want to make sure things are done right," said Garfield
Twp. Fire Chief Kevin Tubbs.
This still creek connects with two nearby lakes.
So if any type of contamination were to spread, they would
have to deal with a much bigger mess.
"We live in a vacation paradise. Basically here we have
a lot of lakes, a lot of steams, a lot of water ways -- we have a lot of
potential economic and environmental impact damage," Becker said.
"That's why people come here and that's why a lot of us moved here -- was
for the beauty of it and for the recreation and if it's damaged, it's very hard
to bring back."
Becker says the Department of Environmental quality will
test the location tomorrow just to make sure everything's clean.
No one was seriously hurt in this accident.
Source: http://www.9and10news.com