Progress reported in creek cleanup
FINLEYVILLE – Sunoco Pipeline reported significant progress Sunday in the cleanup of a large amount of nontoxic natural mud and water mixture that leaked from its pipeline construction project into Little Mingo Creek in Union Township last week.
The clay, named bentonite, sprouted from the underground boring operation through fissures behind Mingo Creek Presbyterian Church along Route 88 and at a second location in a small tributary to Little Mingo along Patterson Road, near where the project is staged, the company said.
“We didn’t observe any wildlife impacts. That’s something we take seriously,” Sunoco spokesman Jeffrey P. Shields said Sunday.
The leak was reported about 6 p.m. Thursday to the state Department of Environmental Protection as a Sunoco subcontractor worked to bore a 2,900 foot long horizontal hole as many as 200 feet under the creek and Route 88 for a new pipeline to ship Marcellus Shale natural gas byproducts.
It was not immediately known when the leak began, DEP spokesman John Poister said.
The company was still working on estimating the amount of the bentonite and water mix released into the creeks that spill into the Monongahela River, Shields said.
There was no evidence the material reached the river, Poister said.
Poister said the DEP met Saturday with the company and was satisfied with its cleanup plan. The department will return to the site today to reassess the situation, he said.
Cleanup workers Sunday were hosing down the creek and staging temporary dams to trap the clay in order to vacuum it out of the water. They were working on a 2-mile section of Little Mingo Creek, Shields said.
The cleanup effort should be completed Tuesday, Shields said.
“We’re going to be there as long as it takes and the DEP is satisfied,” he said.