On April 18, a punctured fuel tank spilled 1,200 gallons of diesel onto train tracks and soil in Cottage Grove.
The spill occurred around noon near Highway 99 and West 6th Avenue. The cleanup and investigation process was initiated shortly after the spill, Oregon Department of Environmental Quality Public Affairs Specialist Laura Gleim said.
DEQ’s on-scene coordinator continued to monitor the cleanup through the weekend, Gleim said on Friday, April 21.
According to Gleim, the cleanup process was set into motion Wednesday, with the digging and hauling away of contaminated soil, the removal of some train tracks and rails and the blocking off of multiple streets.
The entirety of the spill was on the surrounding soil, train tracks and rails, and although the diesel entered the Depot Slough. The spill did not contaminate nearby waterways, including the Coast Fork Willamette River, Gleim said. There were no reports of the spill impacting nearby wildlife.
“A lot of the major spills that we’re mostly concerned about are when it affects waterways,” Gleim said. “When it’s on soil, we don’t talk about it as being contained because it has already spilled to the soil. We prevent it from migrating further and eventually reaching potential groundwater.”
According to Gleim, DEQ will be putting the removed tracks back together once it has brought in clean soil and rebuilt the area to be suitable for the train tracks.
The spill in Cottage Grove comes a week after fuel from a Eugene gas station leaked into a creek.
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this article incorrectly referred to the Yaquina River instead of the Willamette River.
