Water is being used to flush fuel out of the tundra, where a tanker truck rolled off the Dalton Highway earlier this month. The Nana Corporation truck is estimated to have leaked in excess of 2,500 gallons of fuel near milepost 299, about 110 miles south of Deadhorse. Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation on scene coordinator Tom DeRuyter says the sloped spill area is being flooded with water.
DeRuyter says the 2.7 acre spill zone is being treated one section at a time and that the lighter-than-water fuel floats to the surface and is mopped up with absorbent material. Over 300 bags of oiled sorbents had been collected as of Monday. DeRuyter says tundra samples are tested to determine the remaining level of fuel contamination.
DeRuyter says about a fifth of the spill area had been treated as of Tuesday, and could not estimate how much longer the cleanup would take. He adds that bear, fox, squirrels and birds have been spotted in the area, but have been kept out of the spill zone.
Dan Bross is a reporter at KUAC in Fairbanks.
