ATHOL — Efforts by cleanup contractors will continue the next few days as they work to recover diesel fuel that spilled into Mill Brook and the Millers River after a diesel tanker truck rolled over at the intersection of Hapgood and Fletcher streets in Athol early Wednesday morning and released an estimated 6,000 gallons of product.
Edmund Coletta, spokesperson for the state Department of Environmental Protection, said a department emergency responder was on scene Thursday to oversee the work there. Fuel was skimmed at booms at the wastewater treatment plant and Route 202 bridge overnight. Booms are barriers that slow the spread of oil and keep it contained. Coletta said the crashed tanker truck was removed from the accident site early Wednesday night and additional equipment then responded to clean up the roadway. Fuel is being vacuumed into tanker trucks.
“The sheen has thinned out on the river closer to the source,” Coletta said in an email to the Greenfield Recorder. “The Department of Fire Services will be dispatching their drone to get better pictures of the river to check for further impacts, but the fuel does not seem to be getting caught up in the shoreline vegetation.”
The fuel made it past the dam and downstream to Orange, where recovery efforts are also underway by MassDEP. There is reportedly no threat to the public.
Athol Fire Chief Joseph Guarnera said no fuel had gotten into drinking water. He said his department responded to the intersection of Hapgood and Fletcher streets a little after 4 a.m. on Wednesday and had to extricate the tanker truck driver, who was pinned under the steering wheel and the dashboard and in a great deal of pain.
“It was a pretty difficult extrication,” Guarnera said. “It must have been very scary for him.”
The chief said the driver for Goguen Transportation, of Gardner, was transported to a trauma center. He said it appears the cause of the accident was ice on the road.
“It’s a pretty steep hill, and it was icy,” he said.
The chief said his crew cleared the scene by 6 p.m. on Wednesday.
Reach Domenic Poli at: dpoli@recorder.com or 413-772-0261, ext. 262.