ROMEOVILLE, Ill. — Crews excavating the area of a leaking oil pipe in Romeoville believe they are closing in on the source, officials said yesterday.
Sam Borries, on-scene coordinator for the US Environmental Protection Agency, said
Consequences for not doing so vary and could result in the EPA taking over on site.
Nearly 200 workers have been at the site 24 hours a day since the leak was discovered Thursday. Borries estimates 7,000 barrels of water and oil have been recovered. A barrel has 42 gallons. Crews cut open pavement and dug about 5 feet to reach the 34-inch-diameter pipe.
Enbridge Energy — which also owns a pipeline that leaked hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil into a southern Michigan waterway in July — plans to drill through the top of the pipe to extract remaining oil.
A company spokeswoman said the Illinois leak doesn’t appear related to the Michigan spill, but a federal official said it may be too early to tell.
The leak was discovered in Romeoville by local water department workers responding to a complaint from a business owner about a drinking water line, Borries said. Oil was coming from a pipe that runs under a street through an industrial park and moves oil to a refinery about 1 to 2 miles east of the spill site.
