12-Mile Spill From Truck Crash Soils Creek, River

A three-truck collision sent more than 3,000 gallons of oil into Newhall Creek Wednesday, creating a 12-mile-long spill along the rain-swollen watersheds north of the San Fernando Valley that fouled nearly a dozen birds in the wetlands, state officials said as they battled to contain the spill.

Officials said the spill, which moved into the Los Angeles River by nightfall, posed no apparent threat to public health.

The mess started about 2:15 a.m., when a tractor-trailer truck driven by Adel Hanna of Santa Monica hit the guardrail on the southbound Golden State Freeway at the transition to the Antelope Valley Freeway and overturned, CHP Officer Wendy Moore said.

A postal truck barreled into Hanna’s overturned truck, Moore said, and then a tractor-trailer rig driven by 32-year-old Jason Mead of Bakersfield approached the crash.

When Mead swerved to avoid the pileup his truck overturned, and 3,800 gallons of petroleum-based fuel cutter splashed onto the road, seeped into a drainage pipe and spilled into Newhall Creek, Moore said. There were no serious injuries, she said.

It took some CHP officers almost two hours to reach the scene of the crash due to the line of trucks backed up on California’s main trucking route, Moore said.

About 7:30 a.m., officials from the State Department of Fish and Game spotted the spill in Newhall Creek, which flows through wetlands populated by several species of birds year-round.

Workers with the state’s Office of Oil Spill Prevention and Response laid oil-containing booms in the creek, but waters swollen by the season’s first rainstorm rose above the booms as the spill was swept downstream, agency spokeswoman Alexia Retallack said.

“It’s been real rough,” Retallack said. “The weather just does not seem to be working in our favor.”

The spill created a shallow gloss on the surface of the waters. By Wednesday evening the spill had stretched about 12 miles and was flowing through drainage systems and Bull Creek into the Los Angeles River, Retallack said.

State workers spotted 10 birds that appeared to have been coated with oil--egrets, mallards and a heron, Retallack said. But the birds evaded rescue attempts.

The swollen waterways kept workers at bay. “It is extremely dangerous for people out there,” Retallack said.

Workers will return this morning to try to recover birds and halt the progress of the spill, she said.