A portion of the nation’s largest fuel pipeline has been restarted, days after it was shut down by a diesel fuel leak in Virginia, Colonial Pipeline said.
The spill at the Witt booster station near Danville was discovered Tuesday, prompting the line to shut down, the Alpharetta, Georgia-based company said. The affected line returned to normal operations late Sunday after crews completed repairs, spokesman David Conti said in an email. The restart was initially expected on Saturday.
Equipment failure caused the spill, which was detected during a routine station check and appears to be contained on the property, the company said. The company did not say what caused the leak.
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While this particular line was closed, the rest of the system was working normally, Conti said.
About 2,500 gallons of diesel fuel was spilled, but the spill was contained at the site between the ground and an adjacent stormwater retention pond, according to Virginia Department of Environmental Quality spokesman Aaron Proctor. There have been no signs of impacts to state waters or wildlife beyond the fish and animals living in the retention pond.
About 20 truckloads of contaminated soil were expected to be removed from the site this week, Proctor said in an email. Colonial has begun sampling groundwater wells within a 1/4-mile radius for contamination and is coordinating those tests with property owners, he said.
A section of the Colonial Pipeline in Virginia has been repaired after a gas leak
Colonial transports gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and home heating oil from refineries located on the Gulf Coast through pipelines that run from Texas to New Jersey. Its pipeline system spans more than 5,500 miles and transports more than 100 million gallons per day. The line affected by the shutdown carries about 885,000 barrels of product per day from Greensboro, North Carolina, to Linden, New Jersey, the Danville Register & Bee reported.
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In May 2021, the company temporarily shut down its operations following a ransomware attack.
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The fuel supply disruption for nearly a week led to panic buying and shortages at gas stations from Washington, DC to Florida. The company revealed that it paid a $4.4 million ransom to regain access to its data, and the Justice Department later announced that an anti-ransomware task force recovered most of the ransom.
