Contaminated water, soil removed after pipeline leak

CLARK FREEPORT—Contaminated soil and water were removed from a village in Dinalupihan, Bataan province, where a petroleum pipeline between the Clark Freeport and Subic Bay Freeport suffered a leak on Aug. 13, the state-owned Clark Development Corp. said on Friday.

It cited a report from the Clark Pipeline and Depot Co. (CPDC), operator of the 67-kilometer pipeline that was punctured by equipment operated by a government construction project in Barangay San Ramon in Dinalupihan. It said the leak had been contained.

CPDC’s contractor, Envirocare Management Precision Inc. (EMPI), used booms, pads, absorbents and saw dusts, as well as activated carbon and odor neutralizers, to remove contaminated soil and water.

Traces of fuel on monitoring wells and volatile organic compounds were within tolerable limits, based on results of tests by EMPI, CPDC said.

EMPI had been tasked with continuing the cleanup for “possible remaining contaminants, mapping of the area, and monitoring activities,” CPDC said. Darwin Chan, CPDC general manager, said his firm closed three valves to immediately stop the leak.

He said CPDC had done tests to check the condition of the pipeline, which, he noted, did not suffer corrosion, cracks or structural defects.

The pipeline was originally 100 kilometers long after it was put up by the United States military in the 1960s to support the fuel requirements of the former military bases at Clark and Subic.

The bases closed and American troops were withdrawn when the Philippine Senate voted against the extension of the 1947 Military Bases Agreement in September 1991. Tonette Orejas, Inquirer Central Luzon