News from the Oklahoma Corporation Commission

OKLAHOMA CITY – The procedure wasn't complex, but cardboard boxes and a natural law helped an Oklahoma Corporation Commission fuel specialist prevent a diesel fuel leak from becoming an environmental problem.

Mike Staples usually checks fuel pumps for proper calibration, storage tanks for water or other contaminants and fuel station operators for compliance with Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) record-keeping requirements.

But when he went to investigate a problem at a service station in Clayton, a rural hamlet about 25 miles south of Wilburton, he found diesel fuel and water running along a bar ditch and entering a small stream which flows into the nearby Kiamichi River.

Staples called for help, and the nearest environmental remediation company, Tulsa-based Enercon Services, was immediately dispatched to the scene.

But with help nearly three hours away, Staples had to improvise a way to at least slow the flow of diesel. He knew that the diesel was floating on top of the water. From the service station, he got some moisture-resistant cardboard containers used to package beverage cans to use as skimmers. He floated the boxes at the edge of the stream, using weeds to help hold them in place. The boxes trapped much of the diesel fuel and let the clear water flow underneath. Staples tended his improvised dam, changing boxes when necessary, until Enercon specialists arrived with floating booms and vacuuming devices to remove diesel that had entered the stream. No diesel reached the Kiamichi River.

"There are better ways, but when you don't have any equipment and have to think quickly and use what's available, this was very inventive and I'd give him an 'A'," said Dick Oppel, a Corporation Commission geologist/hydrologist who coordinates fuel spill emergency response programs.

The diesel leak was traced to an above-ground tank at the service station. Tank records indicated a loss of between 600 and 700 gallons.

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