SALEM — A pipe once used for heating oil broke at the Salem Harbor Station yesterday, spilling 40 to 50 gallons.
Up to 10 gallons of the spilled oil made its way into Salem Harbor, according to Dan Genest, spokesman from Dominion, the Virginia-based company that owns the Salem coal power plant.
The leak was discovered at 10 a.m. at the pier behind the power plant.
Power plant employees cast booms into the water to contain the oil, and the state Department of Environmental Protection, the Coast Guard, the Salem harbormaster and the Salem Fire Department were notified.
Clean Harbors environmental cleanup also traveled to Salem to assist with the cleanup and investigate the incident, according to Salem Harbormaster Peter Gifford.
Genest said the pipe "broke or ruptured," but why it happened is not known.
The pipe, he said, was used by the former owners of the plant, PG&E, which would bring in large amounts of heating oil and distribute it to local oil providers.
Heating oil, also known as Number Two oil, hasn't been delivered to the plant in almost a decade.
Between 40 and 50 gallons of oil spilled into a concrete vault, and five to 10 gallons overflowed into a trench and down into the harbor, Genest said.
The harbormaster described the spill as long and narrow, running along the 800-foot dock at the station, but contained against it and radiating no more than 10 feet out from the dock.
Gifford said the power plant does annual drills with the harbormaster and Coast Guard to prepare for oil spills.
The oil spilled is equivalent to diesel, according to Gifford, versus Number Six, which is the thick goo that spilled from the Exxon Valdez in Alaska in 1989.
Gifford said crews used "sausage booms" to suck up the oil from the harbor's surface like sponges.
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