Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst with the Oil Price Information Service, told the outlet that although ships from as far away as Texas and NY have already begun to route emergency supplies of petrol to the area, it still wouldn’t be enough to mitigate the shortage. Pat McCrory in North Carolina waives some of the size and weight restrictions on gasoline tank trucks. “Like PHMSA, we are focused on safety and committed to ensuring the integrity of the pipeline”, he said in an email.
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A spokeswoman for Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley said Friday that he’s in communication with pipeline company officials along with state and federal officials assisting at the spill location. Governors in Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee previously took action similar to Haley’s.
Fuel supplies in at least five states – Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee and the Carolinas – were threatened by the spill, and the U.S. Department of Transportation ordered the company responsible to take corrective action before the fuel starts flowing again.
“This plan has been reviewed by all appropriate federal agencies, including the U.S. Department of Transportation and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)”, read a posting on Colonial’s spill response web site.
Colonial Pipeline, the company that operate the broken pipeline, initially estimated that 225,000 gallons of gasoline spilled, but estimates range as high as 338,000 gallons. It’s unclear when the spill began. In fact, some folks in the Deep South are seeing flashbacks to the 70s, with shortages and outages at the pump, thanks to a pipeline rupture in Shelby County, in central Alabama.
The agency said the spill is “within an unusually sensitive ecological area” and it ordered Colonial to take action “to protect the public, property and the environment from potential hazards”.
In a statement Saturday, the Alpharetta, Georgia-based company said fix work had begun in an effort to return the pipeline to service “as rapidly and safely as possible”. The company says spilled gasoline is being taken to the storage facility for. The company says it has more than 700 employees in the area working to fix the leak and mitigate environmental damage.
The average price of a gallon of regular gasoline in Georgia rose to $2.26 as of Sunday morning, according motorists’ advocacy group AAA, up more than six cents overnight and more than 15 cents in a week.
Quik Trip spokesman Mike Thornbrugh said several stations in SC were seeing outages.
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The Colonial Pipeline is not the only supplier of petroleum to Tennessee.
