The NC Colonial Pipeline Spill Keeps Getting Bigger

According to a new press release from the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, Colonial Pipeline Company — whose pipeline leaked over a million gallons of gasoline into the Oehler Nature Preserve in Huntersville, NC last August — ”verbally informed” state regulators that their most recent estimate of 1.2 million gallons was “no longer accurate and that the model used was no longer appropriate.” As such the NC DEQ is requiring Colonial to yet again revise their volume estimates, making this the third time the agency has asked them to do so.

Colonial Pipeline’s initial estimate in August was 63,000 gallons, a number which grew to around 250,000 in November. After seeing discrepancies in Colonial’s reporting of the amounts of product recovered compared to the amount of product released, the NC DEQ required the company to revise those numbers again — and Colonial came back with a whopping 1.2 million gallon estimate two months later, in January this year. Apparently, the same type of discrepancies raised flags at DEQ this time around too, as Colonial reported recovering 944,400 gallons of gasoline from the spill site, as well as 1.15 million gallons of petroleum contact water, numbers that raised “significant concerns" with regualtors.

“It is unacceptable that for eight months Colonial Pipeline has been unable to…