27,000 gallons of oil spilled amid freak Colorado flooding
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/09/23/27000-gallons-of-oil-spilled-amid-freak-colorado-flooding/
Inspectors have reached a third of states 50,000 sites and report eight notable spills totalling 27,000 gallons of oil
27,000 gallons of oil spilled amid freak Colorado flooding
By Suzanne Goldenberg, The Guardian
Monday, September 23, 2013 19:31 EDT
Inspectors hunting for oil pipelines and oil drums damaged in Colorados epic floods are being completely overwhelmed by the sheer scale of destruction, a member of Congress has warned.
Jared Polis, a Democratic representative from Colorado, said the states regulatory agency was struggling to reach flooded areas and arrive at a full accounting of the damage and potential leaks to its 50,000 oil wells. Inspectors have so far reached about a third of the flooded oil fields. Last week, aerial surveys of the flooded area showed dozens of overturned storage tanks.
Inspectors are completely overwhelmed. There are only a couple of dozen in the state and some areas remain inaccessible even today, Polis told the Guardian. The number of inspectors is insufficient to reach all the sites.
On Monday the vice-president, Joe Biden, spent the day in Colorado, touring the devastated areas. The body of a 79-year-old woman was found beside the Big Thompson River, authorities said, bringing to eight the death toll from the massive flooding.