Terry Halifax
Northern News Services

Fort Smith (Sept 03/01) - An underground oil spill has been contained and is nearly cleaned up at Fort Smith's Aurora College campus.

The spill was first discovered in 1996 and it was suspected the fuel tank was leaking. When the tank was excavated, it was found that the coupling from the tank to the pipeline was defective.

It's estimated that between 70,000 and 100,000 litres of fuel oil had leaked into the ground. The cleanup has a budget of $1.5 million for this year and next.

The cleanup is being conducted by Adam Consulting and EBA Engineering out of Edmonton.

Daniel Adam of Adam Consulting said the tests have proven that the spill is contained within the campus lands, but had potential to migrate into the water table if left for too long.

"In time it may have moved into the river system, but it was moving so slowly, it may have never been a problem," Adam said. "Test holes drilled on the properties surrounding the area show that we have the spill contained within this area."

Some oil has followed the underground water main across Raven Crescent, so Adam said the ditch will be dug up and that contaminated soil will also be removed.

While the soil was excavated a complex vacuum system of pipes and manifolds were pumping the ground water from the contaminated soil into a filtering system which removes the oil and drains the water into the sewage system.

The soil is trucked to a land farm at the Fort Smith dump, where the dirt is spread into thin layers 15 to 30 cm thick and Mother Nature goes to work.

Adam says organic bacteria feeds on the hydrocarbons and through tilling and watering, the soil will be clean in two to three years. The excavated hole will be backfilled with clean gravel and topsoil.