Huntersville Pipeline Spill 4 Times Worse Than Initially Reported

HUNTERSVILLE, NC — An underground gasoline pipeline failure one month ago in Huntersville, initially believed to have spilled about 63,000 gallons, actually released at least four times that amount, according to Colonial Pipeline.

Only about half of the spilled gasoline has since been recovered, the company said in a Sept. 13 update. The spill involving the Colonial Pipeline's underground line occurred shortly before 6 p.m. Aug. 14 near 14511 Huntersville-Concord Road in Huntersville.

The company said no petroleum has been detected in water wells of homes in a 1,500 radius of the spill site, but said it is offering to pay for homes inside that radius to be connected to public water as a proactive measure.

The initial estimate of 63,000 gallons was "based on the best available data at that time," Colonial Pipeline said.

Sunday, the company updated the estimate in a report filed with the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), it said. "That report will indicate that Colonial now estimates that approximately 6,490 barrels or 272,580 gallons of gasoline were released from the pipeline during the incident, and approximately half of the released amount has been recovered to date."

SEE ALSO: 63K Gallons Of Gasoline Released In Huntersville Pipeline Spill

Colonial installed 77 wells at the spill site, 47 of which were installed as monitoring wells. According to the company, when gasoline is detected in a monitoring well, "product recovery begins immediately in an effort to control and limit any further migration."

"The cause of the release is reported as equipment failure," Mecklenburg County Public Health said in a statement at the time of the spill, adding that the incident did not appear to be a threat to potable drinking water wells due to the nature of the incident and the depth of water wells.

As of Sept. 11, private drinking water wells near Oehler Nature Preserve east of Huntersville have been sampled for possible contaminants four times since the incident. "We want to assure the community that there have been no detections of any petroleum constituents in any of the samples that we have taken from any of the residential water wells," Colonial said.