Tustin : Families Return Home; Gas Cleanup Continues

Military families, evacuated after an underground gasoline pipeline burst, returned home early Sunday morning, while emergency crews worked into the night vacuuming up at least 60,000 gallons of gasoline that spilled into a flood-control channel, authorities said.

About 1,500 people were evacuated after a 10-inch steel pipeline ruptured late Saturday, spewing gasoline into a channel near the Marine Corps Helicopter Air Station. All were allowed back into their homes at 8:15 a.m., base officials said.

“Today there is no odor in the housing area, but along the ditch you can still smell gasoline,” said Staff Sgt. Ron Turner, base spokesman. “I think you’ll be able to for quite a while.”

An estimated 60,000 gallons of fuel gushed from a three-foot-long gash along an “electric resistance weld” in the 24-year-old pipe at Moulton Parkway east of Red Hill Avenue, pipeline company officials said.

By Sunday afternoon, about 30,000 gallons had been pumped out of the channel. But officials said the exact amount of spilled fuel would not be determined for a few days.

San Diego Pipe Line) officials could not explain why the pipe, which carries fuel to San Diego County, ruptured. “There was no corrosion, no damage, no nothing,” said John Goss, western district manager for the parent company, Southern Pacific Pipe Line.)

On Sunday, crews replaced a 63-foot length of pipe. Goss said the line was expected to be back in operation by this morning.

Downstream, along the San Diego Creek Channel, vacuum hoses skimmed gasoline off the water’s surface as three dikes built Saturday continued to keep the pollutants from fouling the Upper Newport Bay ecological reserve.

A county environmental official said Sunday’s gusty Santa Ana winds helped to dissipate the volatile gas fumes. “If we didn’t have these Santa Ana winds we would have denser vapors and some evacuations around here,” said Nira Yamachika, an environmental specialist with the county Environmental Management Agency.

When the gas has been removed, Yamachika said, the area in and around the channel will be tested for contamination.

Fumes were being monitored by the county Fire Department. Capt. Michael Boyle said they were “irritating, but not dangerous.”