Metro leaders explain how they’re getting rid of the oil left behind by the UPS plane crash
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WAVE) – Louisville Metro leaders provided an update on Thursday on the ongoing cleanup effort following the deadly UPS cargo plane crash in Louisville, detailing progress in preventing oil contamination of local waterways.
Work crews have prevented 30,000 gallons of oil from getting into local waterways, according to Metro leaders. The cleanup work is running ahead of schedule but remains far from complete.
Brian Bingham, chief operations officer with the Metropolitan Sewer District (MSD), said pure oil recovered from the UPS plane crash site will be disposed of out of state. Crews started loading some of that oil onto rail cars on Thursday.
“There will be five trucks a day that will take it to train cars for five days,” he explained. “So there’ll be 5,000 gallons in a tanker, five trips a day, 25,000 gallons per train car, five train cars. So that’s five days that it’ll be transferred.”
Bingham said there is a lot of water with oil in it. As of now, crews have treated and processed about 600,000 gallons of water.
“By treated, they separate the oil off, put that in the tanks for disposal. Then they go through, and they put it through a process that’s been brought in on-site, and then that is discharged to the MSD sewers, and all the parameters have been evaluated so far have come back at non-detect,” Bingham said.
Officials said there are still almost 2.5 million gallons of water and oil to be treated. While there is no timeline for when that work will be completed, Dr. Aruni Bhatnagar with the University of Louisville emphasized the importance of careful disposal.
“The longer that stands, the more possible it is for these contaminants to leach out in the soil, in the groundwater, and could contaminate the Bluegrass Creek, for example, or the Ohio River,” Bhatnagar said.
Metro leaders said the contaminated soil will be taken to a certified landfill. That process begins next week and should take between three and four days.
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