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Illinois EPA will require Barrington gas station to fund cleanup

The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency will require the owner of a Barrington gas station that leaked a significant amount of fuel into the village's sewer system this week to pay for the cleanup.

IEPA spokeswoman Kim Biggs said Shri Balaji Inc., the owner and operator of the Mobil at Northwest Highway and East Main Street, will be on the hook for the work already done - which includes the cost of pumping out about 6,000 gallons of spilled fuel and ground water - and all future remediation.

A representative from Shri Balaji Inc. could not be reached for comment Thursday.

The IEPA said the station violated the Illinois Environmental Protection Act by leaking contaminants that could cause a pollution hazard.

"There will be crews on site sampling the soil and making sure there is no other product remaining," Biggs said.

Greg Summers, the director of development services for Barrington, said the station was closed Thursday while the Illinois Office of the State Fire Marshal conducted an extensive pressure test. Summers said the station's system failed the test and will need to be re-evaluated and retested today. The station will be allowed to sell gas again only if it passes the full test.

Officials first discovered the leak Monday after residents living nearby reported smelling a gas-like odor in their homes. Officials believe the spilled fuel seeped into the gas station's sewer pipe, which is made of clay and not liquid-tight, then flowed into the village sanitary sewer, Summers said.

The leak did not threaten the village's water supply, and fuel that traveled through the sewer system would be treated with other waste at the village's treatment plant, officials said.

Officials stopped the leak - which is believed to have been sprung last week during routine maintenance of the station's leak detection system on a high-pressure fuel hose - and allowed the station to reopen after a successful Tuesday morning inspection. Soon after, nearby residents called the village again to report that the fuel odor had returned.

Summers said village workers reinspected the sewers and found fuel was again flowing from around the gas station. Representatives from the fire marshal's office and IEPA returned and discovered that much more fuel had escaped during the initial leak than first thought.

Crews dug a hole between the village's sewer line and the station's fuel tanks, inserted a hose and began pumping out liquid. Summers said workers pumped from Tuesday afternoon until Wednesday afternoon, stopping only at 1:30 a.m. Wednesday to sleep.

On Thursday, the gas station's old sewer pipe was coated with plastic to make it liquid-tight. Summers said the station has been reattached to the village sewer line and the village will allow the store portion of the business to reopen while the fire marshal's office is conducting testing outside.

In coming weeks, at least one new monitoring well will be installed near the site of the leak. An outside environmental consultant has been hired to test the soil around the site of the spill to determine how far the fuel went. The consultant also will create a remediation plan to remove any remaining fuel.

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