Gas spill contained on Old Chateauguay Road
Fall was in the air Monday morning, but so was the smell of gasoline, as a spill got into the street from the OCR Gaz Bar.
According to Wihse Stacey, assistant fire chief for the Kahnawake Fire Brigade, the incident that occurred around 8:30 a.m. that morning was due to an issue with the gas tank on a truck.
“The vehicle pulled up to fuel up. When they arrived at the pump, the employee put the nozzle in the tank, as they usually do, and they went to serve another customer,” said Stacey.
The nozzles are designed to be set to do the fill up without necessarily being held by the employee.
But, instead of filling up like normal, the gasoline did not stay in the faulty tank, instead flowing out onto the pavement in front of the gas station and onto the OCR.
Luckily, quick thinking from the Gaz Bar employee prevented a more serious spill, said Stacey. The Gaz Bar had some absorbent material for incidents like this one, and once the Fire Brigade and Kahnawake Public works arrived, they were able to spread more of it out to contain the gasoline.
The nearby sewer grates were also covered by the fire brigade, to prevent leakage into the water system.
According to Stacey, the incident looked “worse than it really was,” because the rainy weather made the oil spread out over a larger surface.
“If I put a little drop of oil on the ground, in water, it’s going to spread out a lot more with the water, when in reality, it’s only that little spot,” said Stacey.
He said that the danger to the public was quite low, due to the relatively small amount of gasoline spilled and the low danger of flammability.
“The gas is only flammable for a certain amount of time,” said Stacey. “And, with the amount of oxygen in the air, it wouldn’t have burned for a long time.”
What did last a while, though, was the odor.
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The smell of gasoline lingered in the air while cleanup was taking place, and some drivers who drove on the OCR before the spill was contained reported that the smell stayed on their car for several hours.
Cleanup from the Fire Brigade, Public Works, and a private cleaning company hired by the Gaz Bar took a few hours, and the gas station was able to resume operations later that day without further incident.
