RENTON – Officials are asking airlines not to refuel their planes at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport after a weekend explosion shut down the 400-mile pipeline system that delivers the airport’s jet fuel.
“We’ve asked the airlines to, when possible, fly in here with enough fuel on board to get to their next destination,” airport spokesman Bob Parker said Monday. “We think we have enough fuel on site to get us through late afternoon or early evening on Wednesday.”
Workers at Olympic Pipe Line Co.’s pumping station in Renton heard an explosion Sunday morning and saw 20-foot flames leaping from a small stainless-steel test line that runs off the main pipeline. The fire was put out in about three hours.
No one was injured, though three firefighters were checked at a hospital after fuel splashed on them.
Between 3,300 and 10,000 gallons of fuel leaked from the three-quarter-inch line, with much of it burning, Olympic President Bobby Talley said Monday. Officials found a pin-sized hole in the test line, but didn’t know what caused it or the fire.
Company officials were checking similar installations throughout the system to make sure no other problems were occurring.
Olympic’s pipeline system moves 12 million gallons of gasoline, diesel fuel and jet fuel through Western Washington every day – from refineries at Cherry Point, north of Bellingham, and March Point, near Anacortes, to as far south as Portland, Ore. A rupture of the main pipeline in 1999 at Bellingham killed three people after 237,000 gallons of gasoline erupted in a fireball in Whatcom Creek.
As a precaution, company officials shut down the entire system following Sunday’s explosion. The operator plans to complete repairs and restart the line late today, an Olympic Pipe Line spokesman said Monday night.
The repair and restart plan has been approved by the on-scene coordinators for both the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the state Ecology Department, Olympic spokesman Michael Abendhoff said.
While major fuel delivery spots in Portland and at Seattle’s Harbor Island can be reached by barge or truck, the primary way to deliver fuel to Sea-Tac is through the pipeline, Parker said. The airport had 2.9 million gallons on hand and typically uses 1.2 million gallons per day.
The airport won’t have to close if Olympic takes longer than Wednesday to restart the pipeline, but airlines will have to be certain that their planes arrive with enough fuel to reach their next destinations, Parker said.
Alaska Airlines spokesman Lou Cancelmi said his airline had already started filling up its airplanes’ tanks in cities including San Francisco and San Jose whenever possible in order to reduce its reliance on fuel from Seattle.
But, Cancelmi said, Alaska and other airlines may have to consider canceling flights beginning Wednesday evening if the pipeline isn’t fixed.
Environmental officials were trying to determine how much fuel seeped into the ground, but Talley said a layer of clay underneath the facility should help contain the spill.
Carl Andersen, with the state Department of Ecology, said cleanup workers expected to be able to keep any fuel from reaching nearby Spring Brook Creek, which has a threatened population of chinook salmon.
Olympic was losing $10,000 in business every hour the pipeline was shut down, Talley said.
Last year Olympic filed for reorganization in a Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceeding.
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