Clean-up of the Jan 18 Eating Creek methanol spill continued last week. It will continue, says an Alberta Environment spokesperson, until the government is satisfied.
“We have instructed them to keep pumping until there’s no methanol left,” says David May.
A week after the accident that caused a Boychuk Transportation ‘B’ train hauling methanol to hit the ditch, a company crew was still pumping up water and other material out of the creek. On Jan. 25, Boychuk had pumped out about 60 cubic metres of material and “is continuing to pump,” May said.
In a report to Municipal District #124 council on Jan. 25, Slave Lake Fire Chief Greg Gramiak said that 40,000 of the 52,000-litre load of methanol leaked out of the two tankers. About 80 per cent of that was removed within the first few hours after the accident, Gramiak said. The local fire department organized the initial clean-up, and turned the job over to the company when its crew arrived from Edmonton later that morning.
Sometime after that, Alberta Environment began testing the downstream creek water for methanol contamination. Initial tests were negative, but a Jan. 21 test 100 metres downstream from an earth berm erected on the morning of the accident showed 300 parts per million methanol in the water running under the ice.
“So we’ve instructed Boychuk to build a berm right to the creek bed,” May says.
That work, as well as the continued pumping, continued last week.
Contaminated soil from right at the crash site is also being removed. May says it will be (or has been) transported to an approved site with containment cells for such material.
Gramiak told M.D. council that, initially at least, it had been stowed on polyethylene at the spill site.
The accident that led to the spill was caused when a truck slid through the intersection from the West Mitsue Rd. onto Hwy. 2, colliding with the tanker truck and sending it out of control.
According to reports, it wasn’t the only vehicle to slide through the same intersection that night, nor was it the only collision at a ‘T’ intersection near Slave Lake this month.

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