Frequently Asked Questions about the Burbank School Oil Release
January 15, 2004
1. What caused the oil release?
The release of No. 4 oil that was discovered on December 12, 2003 originated from the 10,000 gallon underground tank and/or related piping at the Burbank School. This tank was removed from the ground on December 29th. The Town continues to investigate the cause of the leak and mitigate the impact of the release.
2. How old was the tank?
The double-wall 10,000 gallon fiberglass tank was installed in 1988 as part of the Burbank renovation project.
3. How full was the tank?
School records indicate the tank was last filled on December 8 with approximately 4,000 gal of No. 4 heating fuel.
4. Did all of the oil in the tank leak out?
No, approximately 6,500 gallons were recovered from the tank as part of activities on December 12 to mitigate the release.
5. Did all the oil that did leak out get into Clay Pit Pond?
No, only a fraction of the volume of oil released was discharged into Clay Pit Pond. The majority of the oil from the release remained in the vicinity of the tank at the Burbank. Once containment was established at the outlet of Wellington Brook into the Pond on December 12, no further oil was discharged into the Pond.
6. How did the oil get from the Burbank to the Pond?
The Burbank has a network of subsurface drains to relieve and channel water away from the building. These drains existed prior to the 1988 renovation, and some of these drains were intersected during the installation of the site infrastructure during the 1988 construction. Once the oil was in the ground, some of the oil from the release entered the site storm drain system at the Burbank, flowing down the pipes to School Street, and ultimately flowed into Clay Pit Pond.
7. Can the oil get out of the Pond?
No, oil floats on water. The outlet of Clay Pit Pond to Alewife Brook is submerged; therefore, surface floating oil can not flow out of the Pond.
8. How much is the cleanup going to cost?
Although we have not yet determined the full extent of the impact, we have a preliminary estimate that the costs of cleanup could reach up to, but should not exceed $1 million.
9. How are we going to pay for this?
Insurance and potential third-party claims remain viable options the Town will aggressively pursue. In the interim, the Board of Selectmen, Warrant Committee, and School Committee continue to discuss strategies to cover unfunded costs. Various options are available, including, but not limited to, the deferral of other capital purchases, utilizing recently certified free cash, identifying other surplus funds, and bonding the expense. These options will ultimately be approved by the Town Meeting. However, because the Board of Selectmen declared this condition an emergency, the Town Meeting should not have to meet prior to the Annual Town Meeting in April.
10. What have we spent thus far?
We have paid approximately $330,000 thus far for environmental clean-up. We will continually update the Board of Selectmen and Warrant Committee of the costs related to the clean-up response.
11. What regulations do we need to comply with?
The release of oil into the environment from the Burbank is regulated by the state, under the Massachusetts Contingency Plan, 310 CMR 40.000, and Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). This release has been assigned Release Tracking number (RTN) 3-23441. The Conservation Commission is the regulatory authority for the Pond, under the Massachusetts Wetlands Protection Act, 310 CMR 10.0000.
12. Have we, or will we be, declared a Superfund site?
No, this has not been declared a Superfund site. This release is considered regulated by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection and is not a “Superfund” site.
13. What does the Town need to do to comply with the regulations?
The Town needs to progress the release through the regulatory compliance process prescribed in the Massachusetts Contingency Plan. Once the Emergency Phase is over, the Town needs to assess and document the extent of the release, prepare a remediation plan [Release Abatement Measure (RAM) plan] that summarizes how the contamination will be remediated, and at the end of those activities prepare a RAM Completion Report that summarizes the conditions that were encountered and what remediation was actually performed.
14. When is this clean-up going to be complete?
The Town expects the active remediation work and the required regulatory compliance submissions to be made to DEP before September 2004.
15. Will the Burbank site and Clay Pit Pond ever be completely clean?
The Town’s regulatory compliance approach is to go for the “cleanest” Response Action Outcome (RAO) – which is a Class A-1. This translates that the source of the contamination has been removed, there are no restriction to future use of any of the impacted areas, and the level of contamination has been reduced to background, or levels no greater than those which are naturally occurring.
16. When the tank is replaced, what will it be replaced with?
The School Committee maintains control over the Burbank School and will make this policy decision in the near future. In the interim, a temporary, aboveground, oil tank has been brought on-site to provide fuel.
17. How will you clean the portion of the storm drain system that was impacted?
The drain lines between the Burbank and the Pond (that carried the oil) will be cleaned using hot water and detergents that degrade the oil. Washdown water generated during this process will be vacuumed from manholes and not be discharged into Clay Pit Pond.
18. What caused the leak?
The Town is still actively investigating the cause. The question of cause is particularly important to the Town because of insurance issues and potential claims by the Town against third parties. The Town has retained the services of a metallurgist and a tank expert. The Town’s experts have providing the following preliminary observations:
· The interior tank has been inspected and tested and appears, at least preliminarily, to not be the source of the leak
· A small hole was identified in the return pipe in an area of the system that shows significant staining.
· Our experts believe that preliminary observations suggest that this leak is a relatively recent and sudden occurrence.
At this time we have not determined a cause for the leak, however, we are focusing our investigation on the return pipe as the source of the leak.
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