CHESAPEAKE
City officials say there were absolutely no inspection requirements for the Allied Terminals tank that collapsed Wednesday, injuring four people and spilling 2 million gallons of liquid fertilizer.
Some of it flowed through storm drains and pipes into the Elizabeth River's Southern Branch, posing a threat to aquatic life, according to the Department of Environmental Quality.
Chesapeake officials said Thursday they are considering pushing for stronger regulations governing the frequency of inspections for fuel storage tanks and aging structures like the collapsed Tank 201, which could be at least 70 years old.
An Allied Terminals spokesman said the tank passed an inspection by the American Petroleum Institute in January 2007. Chesapeake Fire Chief Steve Best said his department inspected the entire Allied Terminals facility in October 2007.
But city leaders are concerned about more than two dozen other tanks that surround the South Hill neighborhood. The tanks have the potential to hold a total of at least 10 million gallons of gasoline, 10 million gallons of diesel fuel, and 26 million gallons of fertilizer.
Some of the tanks are just as old as Tank 201.
"I have no greater confidence in the structure of the remaining tanks," said Chesapeake City Councilman Bryan Collins.
Labeled Tank No. 201, the 35-foot-high, fixed-roof storage tank seems to appear in an aerial photograph taken of the South Hill area in 1937.
State code says that above-ground storage tanks containing flammable, combustible liquids must be inspected under an API standard at least every 10 years, Best said.
Even though it could be at least 70 years old, Tank 201 was not required to undergo inspections under the standard because it contained fertilizer and not flammable liquids, Best said.
Wednesday's collapse has intensified talks of redeveloping South Hill and relocating residents, who have complained for years about being surrounded by industry and cut off from friends and family by the construction of Interstate 464.
City Manager William Harrell said Thursday that he was drafting a letter to U.S. Rep. Randy Forbes asking for help securing federal assistance to move residents.
After the spill, about 20 South Hill residents left their homes and were put up Wednesday night in a Chesapeake hotel. On Thursday, the area's narrow roads were crowded with trucks and vehicles from the DEQ, Environmental Protection Agency, and Chesapeake Fire Department. City officials say it will take about three days to clean up everything, and that residents can feel safe about returning to their homes.
"Human health issues are not likely," said Peter deFur, a Richmond-based environmental consultant and part-time faculty member at Virginia Commonwealth University. "If it gets into people's yards, it's going to be fertilizer for their plants."
But the liquid fertilizer spill could have greater consequences for the Elizabeth River, even though officials are not sure how much actually got into the water.
"It's got ammonia in it. Ammonia is a toxic chemical," said DEQ spokesman Bill Hayden. "If the amount were high enough, it could affect whatever is living in the river."
Federal, state and city officials were still investigating all aspects of the tank collapse.
Allied Terminals Executive Vice President Bruce Law said two employees injured in Wednesday's collapse "have some broken bones and don't feel well." However, their injuries were not considered life-threatening, he said.
Two more people also were taken to the hospital, but Capt. Steve Johnson of the Chesapeake Fire Department declined to say where. He also said he did not know the conditions of the patients. Six others exposed to the substance were decontaminated Wednesday.
Fire officials were still waiting Thursday for more details about Tank 201. Even company officials were unsure of its age.
Law said he thought it was built in the 1930s. "It might have been the '20s; it might have been the '40s. I don't know."
Law did not know the life-expectancy for the tank but said it underwent a "major conversion" from a rivet tank to a welded-seam tank a couple of years ago. "It can be a pretty involved process," Law said, and is meant to keep old rivets from leaking.
In more than 30 years with the Fire Department, Chief Best said, he has never seen a storage tank of this size collapse. "We're not sure why this failed," he said. "We don't know what happened."
Councilman Collins said he is concerned about the other tanks. "They're all about the same age," he said.
Residents say that city leaders promised to help them relocate more than a year ago.
In 2007, a California company proposed building the country's largest biodiesel plant right next to South Hill, which has about 30 homes. Even though a number of issues were raised about developer Smiling Earth Energy LLC, the company was able to win approval from the City Council after pledging as much as $5 million to redevelop or reinvigorate South Hill.
The project - and the $5 million - never came through.
But the city continued to meet with residents about a plan to package and market their homes to a developer. Residents say they hope Wednesday's spill will jump-start an effort that has been unsuccessful so far.
"The city promised us they were going to get us out of here," said Cynthia Scott-Acevedo, who has spent about 70 years in the same family home in South Hill. "It's high time they do something."
Pilot researchers Jake Hays and Maureen Watts contributed to this report.
Mike Saewitz, (757) 222-5207, mike.saewitz@pilotonline.com
Kristin Davis, (757) 222-5208, kristin.davis@pilotonline.com
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Truly Amazing
From Bell Harbor to The Flyash Golf Course,The 4 million dollar road for Wal-Mart, The Jordan Bridge closing, the other 3 bridges that fire trucks cannot cross, the outrageous mosquito control budget, the voting to increase storm water fees consistently, the high real estate taxes, the hiring of high priced consultants that tell us what we already know, voting yes for scams like the Smiling Earth Energy Biodiesel plant. You can't make this stuff up. It is truly amazing how we the people continually elect the same people to our City Council, who have shown a lack of investigative prowess,good judgement and pragmatic decision making that citizens would expect their elected officials to have. Chesapeake is such a beautiful place to live, I hope & pray that these string of poor decisions cease and that our current leaders keep the citizens of our city safe and focus spending on strengthening our infrastructure that has been ignored for so long for the sake of residential and condo development projects.
Response Jim Jones
Thanks for the laugh. If we do meet on the bay...Maybe I will give way. lol
contractorva
I should have guessed you were a stinkpotter! Do you "go" over the transom? I'll bet you do. That's illegal you know!
I'm kidding ... we just bought a new sailboat so maybe I'll make you give way someday on the bay.
I'm a poet and didn't know it.
jim jones...response
I am not an environmental remedation contractor seeking a contract. But I do live & have properties in South Norfolk either adjacent or very close to the southern branch of the Elizabeth River. So it is of great interest to me when chemical spills occur. Any "angling" I do is for flounder or rockfish usually in the Chesapeake Bay or the Atlantic well away from the river. I am also sympathetic to the plight of the Mummichog.
contractorva
I'm not sure what you are trying to say but, I didn't read anything that refuted my point. That point being that it was not 2 million gallons of cyanide or OKC like explosives that spilled and also, while it is certainly a bad accident, there is no good reason to use tax money to move anyone out of their homes as was mentioned in the article. It was a fertilizer that, while not GOOD for fish and people to come in contact with, it is not horrible environmental disaster either. You wouldn't happen to be an environmental remediation contractor by any chance would you? Angling for a contract maybe?
Fish may live for 96 hours in a 10% solution
If the other 90% of the solution has no other contaminants already there. There is also an accumlative effect to consider. For 300 years the Elizabeth River flowing into the Chesapeake Bay has been an industrialized area. It is already now contaminated by cresote, pentachlorophenol & what ever other ungodly products such as fuel,oil, & trash deposited by the navy, buisnesses and shipyards through the years all the way back to the Gosport Days. Not to mention fertilizers, pet waste, etc from storm runoff. The fish are already struggling to survive without adding anything else to the mix. The river had no real protection against polluters until the EPA was formed by an executive order of President Nixon in the 70's.
Geeeezzzz people
Even the most cursory search on the internet will provide enough info on this to see that while, yes, it is terrible that the tank failed and all these people were displaced for a day or two, it is NOT that bad. It was NOT what was used in the OKC bombing. That was nitromethane ammonium nitrate. A dry fertilizer. This is, if there is any accuracy to the reports, urea ammonium nitrate or a UAN solution. It's a liquid fertilizer. You can spray it on your grass. You can spray it on yourself a wash it off if you want to. (Not recommended) It is non reactive, non flammable and practically non-toxic to humans and aquatic life. (Fish will live in a 10% solution up to 96hrs.) It is intended to be sprayed on your FOOD at some point. Get a grip.
NO THREAT NO THREAT AT ALL
In the Oaklahoma city bombing diesel fuel and fertilizer were used as the explosive agents...What is stored in these tanks and the other tanks around this tank yard..Im glad I live a good distance from these tanks...Someone with the city or the fire dept needs to get a clue...When you add water to fertilizer and it is around metals it causes rust very fast and very bad these tanks are made of what and are how old we will have to wait and see what else happens here its only a matter of time
old metal tanks
I lived on Yale ct for 30 years I worked for a Demolition Contractor back in 1990 that had a Contract with Texaco Oil we cut down three tanks that was used to store J 5 jet Fuel the tanks were so Rusty that they leaked fuel into the ground and the Creek they had to clean up that Spill but to top it off at the same time that's wen Norfolk and Virginia beach needed water so the lake Gaston water line was run it runs right beside the Norfolk and western train tracks under the river and less then 50 feet from the tank that collapsed and I no the water line is not a solid water line it goes down the tracks then is goes under a small creak that's called giligan creek from there it goes down Yale ct then across Bainbridge blvd to Virginia ave that pipe is a slip joint pipe with main hole covers all along it its a 52 in pipe so there is most likely fertilizer in that pipe so that means theirs fertilizer in Norfolk's and Virginia beach's drinking water now
This is my favorite quote in the whole story
"The city promised us they were going to get us out of here," said Cynthia Scott-Acevedo, who has spent about 70 years in the same family home in South Hill. "It's high time they do something."
I think that most people would have figured out that the city wasn't going to do anything before 70 years had elapsed...
The Fish are Healthy? Tell that to a mummichog
*"In recent studies in the Elizabeth River, researchers have documented especially high rates of liver cancer and precancerous tumors in mummichogs living near toxic hot spots on the Southern and Eastern branches of the river, near old factories and shipyards."
(*from the pilotonline april 06 2008.).I'm not sure but look at the shape of the mouth on the mummichog, I would have to guess it's not what is called a bottom feeder.
Why?
Why should anyone pay to move these people? The homes there were built in the '30s; Right around the time the tanks were built. Zoning is somewhat arbitrary and can be changed if you've got enough money. So what if it is an Industrial Zone? It wasn't before they adopted zoning ordinances (1934). If it has been OK to live there next to the tanks and the railroad all these years then why not now? Move if you don't like it but, don't ask someone else to pay for it. You either own the house because YOU BOUGHT IT or you rented because YOU LIKED IT. Nothing has changed. Nobody forced you. Sue the owner of the tank if it caused you any inconvenience but leave the taxpayers out of it. Everybody wants something for nothing!
You want to put that bad old
You want to put that bad old company out of business and the others around because they have been around awhile to and see what you will be paying for gas again. They are saying that some of those tanks has been around since the 30's and that they had done some upgrades on them so i feel that they are not in the wrong. They didn't let this happen to hurt anyone and they are only have to have these inspected every 10 years and it was do in 1/07 so it was up to date. That could have been a brand new tank and it could have happened. I do know that they have them worked on when they see that it needs to be. They are just trying to make a living if they was so bad they would have have been already been put out of business.
Containment Walls
Containment walls are designed to hold the contents of the tanks that they surround, should they spring a leak. An examination of the aerial photos shows that the fluid is contained within the wall, with room to spare. They are also designed to be impervious to the fluid in the tank.
They are not designed to contain a catastrophic failure of the tank, such as what happened. Everything that went over the wall is what sloshed out when the entire tank failed suddenly.
As for the comments about the fish and other life in the river? For the most part, they are quite healthy. Of course those bottom feeders that live in the badly polluted parts aren't but for the most part, the fish are just visitors from elsewhere and are only in the river for short times, such as during their migrations.
Remember About 20 or 25 Years ago..
Someone fella leased a storage tank around here storing a commodity in the hopes that he'd make a fortune and lost when that market failed to matierialize. In dire financial staits he then tried to pipe bomb the tank to get the insurance money which failed and he was tried and sentenced. Allied might own the tank, insured. What subcontactors for management or maintenance are involved, insured? Who owned the contents, insured? If it was leased, by who?
"The city was supposed to be
"The city was supposed to be finding a way to buy us out,"
The way out was supposed to be the biodiesel plant.
I am surprised the containment area around the tank was so undersized.
The Chesapeake Council can provide help - Take a vote! (5-4)
Let’s see, the Chesapeake City Council should go into emergency session and take a vote to ease the pain of the residents. Vote to put that bad old company out of business and take those jobs with them.. that's what they'll say..
So, would you care to guess the outcome of THAT vote? The VP reports, “Councilmen Bryan Collins (D), C.E. "Cliff" Hayes Jr.(D) (Mr. I want to build in SoNo next to the plants!), and Dwight Parker (D) and Councilwomen Ella Ward (D) and Patricia Willis (SWING - D) voted to increase the taxes on all businesses in Chesapeake then redistribute the dollars" Ding Ding Ding - Dems win again!
Let’s pray the D's are kicked out of office in 2010! & oh yeah, Thanks again Patty!
The only fish in those waters
Are of the three-eyed, twenty fin kind. Those waters have been poisoned in so many ways I'd be surprised if there's anything living there.
Hayes is campaigning for 2012....again
Hayes wants his name in the paper as often as possible. He wants to look like the superhero that saves South Norfolk. He overstepped his boundaries. The mayor can call an emergency session to discuss options, if needed. Hayes jumpes the gun by asking Harrell to contact our House Representative and Senators. Hayes obviously disrespects the hierarchy that is in place with our local, state, and federal governments. Did Hayes consult with Hallman (City Attorney) to ascertain who is liable? This may not even be a government issue at all. Citizens of Chesapeake, it is time to let Hayes go. Do not vote for him again. He is just another smooth talker in a suit that has no clue.
Yes They Did
Yes they did pretty much say there is nothing to worry about earlier...As of now it sounds like there is nothing to worry about...unless you happen to be a fish.