FAIRBANKS, Alaska — Crude oil was flowing again through the trans-Alaska pipeline Monday, as workers focused on the massive cleanup of a 285,600-gallon oil spill caused by a bullet hole.
"Our plan is to remove gross contamination before freeze-up," said Bill Howitt, an Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. vice president based in Fairbanks. "We anticipate it will take literally years to get the area free of contamination."
By Sunday night, Alyeska had collected 108,402 gallons of spilled crude.
Colorful reporter dies: William J. Mertena, a longtime Associated Press reporter in Olympia, Seattle and Spokane, died Monday of emphysema and congestive heart failure. He was 70. Mertena, a colorful character who spoke with a drawl and loved poetry and drama, covered state government and politics for the AP from 1966 until his retirement in 1987. He was part of the AP team that reported the May 18, 1980, eruption of Mount St. Helens. A memorial service was scheduled for 2 p.m. Friday at the Olympia Unitarian Universalist Congregation, 2200 East End Street.
False alarm: About 125 people were evacuated from their homes near Gold Hill, and I-5 was closed early Monday morning before a leak in a passing chemical truck was determined not to be hazardous chemicals. No one was hurt, and no hazardous chemicals escaped, said State Police Lt. Dan Durbin. The truck is owned by KVS Transport of Bakersfield, Calif., and was taking a load of waste chemicals from El Segundo, Calif., to Tacoma. The chemicals were considered to be explosive and toxic. They included hydrogen chloride and hydrogen fluoride. The chemical leaking was inert nitrogen used to stabilize the load.
Horse keeps on ticking: A 13-year-old horse with an irregular heartbeat that was to go under the knife Monday to receive a pacemaker showed signs of recovery over the weekend and the surgery was canceled, doctors said. Veterinarians at Oregon State University in Corvallis had planned to thread the pacemaker device — an adapted version of the human model — into the horse’s chest through his jugular vein. The horse, a pasture pet named Toby, was to have stood for the entire procedure, and would not have been given general anesthesia, doctors said.
From Herald news services
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
