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CITGO Petroleum (1250), Lake Charles

Releases of

LDEQ Accident Number
Accident Date		 Point Source(s) Notes Amount of Release
154086

2014-02-23		B-dock
Cause: Initally Citgo reported a spill of a Xylene based material at the Citgo B-Dock. A Citgo representative stated that a contractor spilled approximately 7 gallons of Dupont Oil Red B Liquid Dye which is added to off road diesel fuel. The spill occurred on the dock during the loading of off road diesel onto a barge. Before the product could be recovered, a heavy rain occurred which caused the contamination trench to overflow resulting in the material entering the Calcasieu River. The material was contained by hard boom permanently in place at the dock area. The dye was recovered by placing sorbent boom and flushing. The recovery process took several months to accomplish. Sorbent boom was replaced periodically and disposed of in a land fill. Recovery of the dye was complete in May 2014.

Followup: Yes

Notes: The spill was contained using SPCC measures and spill booms were deployed. The plugged containment trench was cleaned to prevent overflowing and the loading point for the red dye injection was relocated to an area better situated to contain spills. The report states there was no-off site damage yet admits to contaminating a major water source. The report also fails to give an end date, duration, or the amount of Xylene present with the dye. The clean up was finished sometime in May of 2014 according to the report. Citgo asked on four different occasions for extensions for the seven day letter which was finally reported on 05/20/2014. Citgo does not discuss why it took so long to file this report, though three additional letters were included with dates in February, March and April. Contaminant is ostensibly a proprietary mixture including xylene and other ingredients. The mixture is categorized as "not extremely hazardous, liquid."		7.3 gallons