Ill. Oil Pipeline Leak Slowing, Size Unclear

TAMMY WEBBER, Associated Press Writer

CHICAGO (AP) -- The leak from an oil pipeline near Chicago appeared to be slowing Saturday, and officials were hopeful they would be able to excavate the site soon to determine the cause and exact location of the break, a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency official said.

But how much oil has spilled and when the leak began remained unclear. The leak was discovered Thursday, and as of Friday between 200 and 600 barrels of oil were being recovered each hour, said EPA on-site coordinator Sam Borries. A barrel has 42 gallons.

Oil is no longer rising to the surface and crews have cut open pavement and dug about 5 feet to reach the 34-inch diameter pipe. Pipeline owner Enbridge Energy Partners(EEP), which also owns a pipeline that leaked hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil into a southern Michigan waterway in July, will drill through the top of the pipe to extract remaining oil, Borries said.

A company spokeswoman said the Illinois leak doesn't appear related to the Michigan spill, but a federal official said it may be too early to tell. The EPA has ordered Enbridge Energy Partners, an affiliate of Canadian company Enbridge Inc., to stop all flow of oil by noon Monday.

The leak was discovered in the Chicago suburb of Romeoville by local water department workers responding to a complaint from a business owner about a drinking water line, Borries said. Oil was coming from a pipe that runs under a street through an industrial park and moves oil to a refinery about 1 to 2 miles east of the spill site.

Borries said there was no way to know how long the pipe had been leaking, but oil was rising to the surface and had run into a ditch and retention pond, and reached the town's wastewater treatment plant. He said the oil was stopped at the plant, which was closed down for about 24 hours.

By Saturday, oil had stopped surfacing, but officials did not yet know if oil was still left in the pipeline or even the exact location of the break, he said. Crews were excavating on both sides of the suspected leak location.

"We need to visually see the pipeline," Borries said. He was unsure how much oil had been recovered, and said the EPA has requested that information from the company.

Enbridge still doesn't know what caused the leak or how much oil has spilled, company spokeswoman Terri Larson said Saturday. Enbridge hoped to get a better look by late Saturday at the damaged steel pipe, which is surrounded by utility lines, so "there's a lot of congestion around and we are being careful not to do anything to make things worse," Larson said.