Jackson Gas spill cleanup effort changes Wisconsin’s landscape – JSOnline

Town of Jackson – More than three weeks after a July 17 gasoline pipeline spill (that spilled an estimated 54,600 gallons of gasoline)…an industrial-scale soil and groundwater cleanup effort has been growing steadily larger to the point where it has overrun the once-secluded 20-acre residence of Patrick and Sally McComis. Their home is 200 feet west of the pipeline break.

The family has not returned there since being evacuated July 18. They are moving out of hotel rooms this weekend and into a Cedarburg home rented for them by West Shore Pipe Line Co.

…Gasoline that spilled out of the pipeline flowed into fractures in dolomite bedrock just a few feet beneath the surface. Twenty-three private wells in the town that tap into a shallow dolomite aquifer for water have been contaminated with gasoline.

….Several wells used to monitor depth and flow of groundwater have been drilled between the spill site and the residence. Four plastic pipes sticking above the ground in a half circle around the house mark locations of soil vapor testing holes.

The pump of the family’s private well is being pulled out so that scientists can study a recent unexpected spike in benzene contamination in the water. Tests of a water sample collected Monday found up to 29,600 parts per billion of the chemical, nearly 6,000 times the federal drinking water standard of 5 parts per billion.

Concentrations of several other gasoline components, including toluene and ethyl benzene, also spiked that day.
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