Oil Forces Carolina Towns to Alter Water Systems
COLUMBIA, S.C. — With their usual water sources threatened by remnants of a 420,000-gallon fuel oil leak, one town switched to an alternative source and a second laid pipe to a secondary reservoir, officials said Sunday.
The oil began leaking Thursday when a 36-inch pipe ruptured into Little Durbin Creek, about 15 miles southeast of Greenville, S.C. The creek flows into the Enoree River, which furnishes drinking water to Clinton and Whitmire in northwest South Carolina.
Clinton, 26 miles from the broken pipe, switched to an alternative water supply Saturday, said Thom Berry, spokesman for the State Department of Health and Environmental Control. The town is now getting water from nearby Duncan Creek.
The oil, moving at nearly 1 mile an hour, had passed Clinton by Sunday, said Noel Griese, spokesman for Colonial Pipeline Co., the Atlanta-based firm that owns the line that broke.
Whitmire, 46 miles from the break, lacked a handy alternative, so officials and volunteers laid water pipe to the Duncan Creek Reservoir, Berry said.
Colonial installed booms on the Enoree to capture leaking oil. By Sunday, about 313,000 gallons of oil had been retrieved. “We’ve got significant amounts yet to recover,†Griese said.
Repairs to the broken pipe were expected to be completed by today.
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