Crews stop oil spill from Garfield drain

The Washington Department of Ecology and staff from the town of Garfield have contained a spill of used crankcase oil that was flowing from a storm drain into Silver Creek, according to a press release issued Tuesday by the department.

The Palouse Conservation District was conducting water sampling Monday near Third Street in Garfield when they saw thick, black sludge coming out of a culvert from the storm drain system. A Garfield crew quickly placed hay bales and sheets of tin to build a catch basin at the storm drain outflow.

An Ecology spill response team placed an absorbent boom in the area to soak up the oil and minimize damage to the environment. A source has not been found, but based on the amount of used oil recovered, about five gallons, investigators believe that someone dumped used oil from a large diesel engine down the storm drain. Silver Creek is a tributary of the North Fork of the Palouse River.

All oils and fuels are environmental poisons. The longer oils and fuels are in the water, the more damage they can cause. A single quart of motor oil can potentially contaminate 100,000 gallons of water and spread over an acre of surface on the water.

The Palouse Conservation District, along with Ecology, Palouse, Garfield, Uniontown, Colton and Pullman will soon be marking all storm drains to remind people that pollution going down the drain goes straight into creeks and rivers. Mary Rosen, manager of the Palouse Conservation District, said in the press release many people believe motor oil, pesticides, household chemicals and other materials going down a storm drain end up going through a treatment plant.