Aurora officials on Thursday said the city’s drinking water was unharmed after about 1,500 gallons of diesel fuel spilled into a storm sewer that feeds into the Fox River.
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An undetermined amount of fuel reached the river, which provides 60 percent of the drinking water for the city of 200,000, officials said.
The fuel that made it into the Fox remained on the far west bank and was buffered by an island from a water intake structure at the city’s treatment facility on the east side of the river near Indian Trail. City officials decided water quality testing wasn’t necessary because it was unlikely the fuel would have reached the intake structure, well below the surface of the river.
The fuel ran through the storm sewer and made its way to the Fox Tuesday night after an underground tank at a nearby Federal Aviation Administration facility overflowed, officials said.
A malfunctioning pump at the FAA site failed to shut down after fueling a generator during a power outage, officials said. When the power was restored, the fuel continued flowing and spilled onto adjacent pavement and into the sewer, the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency and other officials said.
At one point a 1.5-mile “sheen” was reported on the river, Aurora spokesman Dan Ferrelli said. By Thursday afternoon, state EPA spokesman Dennis McMurray said, more than 900 of the 1,464 gallons of fuel had been recovered and the sheen had disappeared. Crews were focusing their attention on a creek west of the Fox River and the storm sewers, McMurray said.
Dave Schumacher, Aurora’s superintendent of water production, said water testing at the intake “was discussed, but we didn’t feel it was necessary. We felt very confident that none (of the fuel) was coming into our intake.” He added that he dipped a bucket in the river at the water treatment plant, ran the water through his hands to feel for a slick, oily liquid and felt none.
Water supervisors will continue monitoring the intake with “slightly heightened interest,” Schumacher said.
Although Aurora draws drinking water from the Fox, other communities downstream do not, officials from those communities said. Montgomery, Oswego and Yorkville on the Fox and the Illinois River communities of Ottawa, LaSalle and Peru all draw from wells or deep aquifers, the officials said.
The FAA facility, at 619 W. Indian Trail, handles high-altitude air traffic in seven states, FAA spokeswoman Elizabeth Cory said. The “commercial power outage” occurred at 5 p.m. Tuesday. Normal service was restored at 10:20 p.m., she said. The site never operated without power.
A discrepancy arose over the amount of fuel that had flowed into the river. Cory said the FAA had maintained throughout Tuesday and Wednesday that nearly 1,500 gallons of fuel had escaped from the tank. Ferrelli said firefighters were told early Wednesday that amount was 20 to 100 gallons.
“Since a spill of that size and nature would be categorized as small and did not necessitate an immediate cleanup effort,” Ferrelli said in a prepared statement, “fire personnel informed (the water district) and plans were made to address it later in the morning.”
The Illinois State Fire Marshal, which is responsible for monitoring and regulating underground fuel tanks, last inspected the FAA tank on Jan. 13, said Scott Johnson, the marshal’s northern regional administrator for petroleum and chemical safety.
Inspectors found no violations in January, Johnson said, adding that after “a quick review,” he found no previous tank violations at the FAA site.
Diesel fuel flowing into the Fox River “is not good,” said Brook McDonald, president and CEO of The Conservation Foundation, a member of a group aimed at enhancing the river’s health, but this week’s spill is “not going to destroy the river.”
Water quality in the Fox River “in general has improved significantly over the last couple of decades,” McDonald said, adding that Aurora is “the leader” in restoring the waterway.
Freelance writer Jack McCarthy contributed.
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