When a tanker truck filled with diesel fuel rolled over at a Revere rotary on Wednesday, it dumped 10,000 gallons of its contents onto the street. With no injuries reported at Brown Circle, attention quickly turned to how to keep the fuel from polluting the nearby marsh lands and Saugus River.
The effort, officials now say, could cost upward of $1 million.
“There were four large gouges in that tank, so a lot of product was coming out at a fast pace,” Revere Fire Chief Christopher Bright told NBC Boston.
The truck tipped over at roughly 4 a.m. as the driver rounded the circle, surveillance videos from a nearby auto shop show. Almost all of its fuel spilled, a Massachusetts State Police spokesperson said.
There have been a number of rollover crashes at the rotary in recent years, Bright said.
On Wednesday, state police said the truck had a defect in its braking system at the time of the crash. The truck has been taken out of a commission while repairs are made. Revere police have not issued charges or violations in connection with the incident, officials said.
Just blocks away from the crash sits Revere’s Sea Plane Basin, a marshy environmental preserve. To the east is Revere Beach, and further north, the Saugus River flows into the ocean.
As fuel made its way into the water, the United States Coast Guard and Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection both responded to the scene in an effort to coordinate the clean-up.
“Our concern is mostly the marsh and the environment,” U.S. Coast Guard Marine Science Technician John Northup said, according to NBC. “I’m always concerned if there’s fuel in the water. It’s really just a matter of how quickly we can get it out.”
Video, meanwhile, showed a cormorant, a type of water bird, covered in oil on a grassy patch in the marshlands.
Cleaning the oil in that type of terrain, with limited accessibility and a tidal flow, is “extremely challenging,” the Department of Environmental Protection said in a statement to NBC.
Coast Guard Lt. Burto Perez told the network he expects the clean-up to take a few days.
“Our goal is to collect as much as possible and to mitigate the impact to the marsh without actually disrupting the plants and the animals that are there,” Perez said. He said it was lucky fire departments from Revere and Chelsea were able to respond quickly and take initial steps to contain the fuel.
Among these actions was putting foam on the road to limit fumes and fire risk.
By 9 a.m. the morning of the crash, video showed crews skimming the surface of the water for fuel. A crane was also brought in to get the truck back on its wheels.
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