EPA leads effort to contain jet fuel spill on Sand Island

From EPA:

For Immediate Release: January 30, 2015

Media Contact:  Dean Higuchi, 808-541-2711, higuchi.dean@epa.gov                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

EPA leads effort to contain jet fuel spill on Sand Island

Federal cleanup order issued to facility’s owner and operator

HONOLULU – Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued a federal Clean Water Act order to ensure the continued cleanup of spilled jet fuel at a tank farm facility on the Sand Island Access Road in Honolulu.

The order requires Airport Service Group International (ASIG), the facility operator, and Hawaii Fueling Facilities Corp., the facility owner, to proceed with cleanup work that will prevent fuel from entering waters or shoreline areas.

Since the 42,000 gallon spill was reported on Jan. 21, the cleanup efforts overseen by EPA, along with Hawaii State Department of Health (DOH), has resulted in the recovery of over 16,000 gallons of spilled jet fuel at the ASIG facility, which provides airplane fuel at the Honolulu International Airport. DOH reports the release does not pose a risk to drinking water. However, fuel has been found to have migrated offsite from the facility through subsurface contamination and is within 150 feet of the harbor.

“Our action today is to make sure the fuel is cleaned up quickly to protect public health and Oahu’s ocean environment,” said Jared Blumenfeld, EPA’s Regional Administrator for the Pacific Southwest. “We will be monitoring the work closely, and will investigate the cause of the spill to prevent one from happening again.”

The ongoing recovery effort includes pumping fuel from extraction trenches and tank monitoring wells. EPA emergency response contractors are also conducting air monitoring. Today’s compliance order, which does not include potential penalties, requires the facility owner and operator to:

• Submit to EPA by Feb. 5 a work plan for daily response activities,
• Clean up all petroleum or contaminated materials released to the environment as a result of the spill,
• Prevent further releases and impacts to the environment resulting from releases of oil/fuel to waters and adjoining shorelines,
• Repair all damaged equipment at the facility to prevent future spills of petroleum

• Submit a plan by Mar. 2 for confirmatory sampling to ensure that the cleanup activities are complete.

The ASIG reported to DOH that the spill was the result of a leak in the bottom of ASIG’s Tank #2. The above ground storage tank has a 2.8 million gallon capacity. The ASIG facility has 16 above ground tanks with a total facility capacity of 44.8 million gallons of fuel and supplies fuel to the Honolulu International Airport.

EPA is leading the response effort with an On-Scene Coordinator and contractors dispatched from the agency’s Pacific Southwest Regional Office in San Francisco. They are working closely with the DOH’s Hazard Evaluation and Emergency Response branch staff and the ASIG facility staff.

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