Photo courtesy of Bay Center Fire Department - Repairs were attempted on the garbage truck fuel tank on site in Williams Park.
On Tuesday, August 25, a garbage truck somehow drove into a gate in the fish camp area of Williams Park and broke open its fuel tank. The diesel spill was close to the Nemah river and caused the Pacific County Emergency Management Agency and the local fire departments to take action.
"There was a gate on the side of the road and the garbage truck ruptured their fuel tank on the side of the gate," said PCEMA Director Scott McDougall. "We had an 18 gallon fuel spill onto the ground right next to the Nemah River."
Bay Center Fire Department and other local departments responded to help with the fuel cleanup. Much of the spilled fuel was absorbed and removed. The garbage company sent someone out to the site right away to assist with damage control.
"The only difficulty in the whole thing was the garbage company wanted to drive their truck back to their base," stated McDougall. "We were uncomfortable with that because they were not able to get the tank plugged completely and there was a potential secondary incident that would have stretched all the way from Nemah back to their shop."
"So we had the state patrol come in and they took the truck out of service," he explained. "The truck was moved to a less sensitive area of the park away from the river. A diesel pan was put underneath to contain any more diesel that might drop out of the tank and they are going to replace the tank on scene."
The Nemah River is one of the rivers that the Chinook salmon run in and any pollutants in the river would reduce the Chinook population.
"The garbage company will be working with the department of ecology and the park owner to mitigate the area of the spill as soon as possible so we don't get rain coming in and washing any of the diesel into the river."