An oil spill has actually forever closed a popular Anchorage dog park.
The spill was initially reported recently at University Lake, and clean-up is still underway. Kelly Rawalt, a representative for the state Department of Environmental Conservation, said teams’ fast action kept the spill from spreading out too far.
“We were able to corral that spill area to a pretty small portion of the lake on the south-southwest,” she said. “And so the rest of the lake has been fairly clean as far as being able to see a visible sheen or smell it.”
The spill was included with lines of drifting yellow booms, which take in oil and function as a barrier.
Rawalt said they have actually been keeping wildlife out of the little infected location. On Thursday, U.S. Fish and Wildlife staff paddled out in kayaks to frighten birds far from the spill. Workers likewise waited the water’s edge with a long vacuum, drawing the oil into a truck onshore.
Rawalt said the spill originated from an oil-water separator in the drain system, which is expected to gather overflow, eliminate any oil and release tidy water. She said the separator most likely flooded and overflowed.
“You know, it’s all this rain lately. It’s just been raining non-stop. And so that’s been, I think, part of what contributed to it overflowing so quickly and why we’ve been monitoring it so closely, because we have a lot of extra runoff lately,” said Rawalt.
The DEC is still examining the source of the oil that the separator gathered. Its preliminary quotes reveal about 20 gallons of oil spilled into the lake.
University Lake dog park stayed closed Friday early morning. Rawalt said it’s still uncertain when the park will resume.
