ANAHEIM : 5,000 Gallons of Gas Spill at Fuel Facility

Almost 5,000 gallons of gasoline were spilled Monday morning at a Mobil Oil Corp. fuel facility in Anaheim when a shut-off valve malfunctioned, a company spokesman said.

By late Monday, 3,000 gallons of gasoline had been recovered, said Jim Carbonetti, public affairs manager for Mobil.

No one was injured in the 5:35 a.m. incident at the gasoline and diesel-fuel distribution terminal in the 1400 block of North Jefferson Avenue. The spilled fuel was contained in an overflow dike, and it posed no threat to the environment, Anaheim Fire Department officials said.

At the time of the accident, gasoline was being transferred from a pipeline to an above-ground storage tank designed to hold more than 50,000 gallons of fuel. The pipeline originates at a company facility in Vernon, Carbonetti said. He added that the spill will not affect Mobil’s gasoline supply.

Protective berms around the storage tank prevented the fuel from leaving the immediate area, Carbonetti added.

Firefighters and hazardous-materials crews from the county and the cities of Anaheim and Orange spent nearly two hours covering the spill with a protective foam. A private company was called in to “vacuum” the spill, Carbonetti said.

Police closed off nearby Orangethorpe and Tustin avenues to traffic during the cleanup operation to reduce the possibility of igniting the fumes, a Fire Department spokesman said.

Mobil’s Anaheim distribution facility receives gasoline from company pipelines. Its storage tanks are used to load tanker trucks that deliver fuel to service stations.