A gasoline spill raised alarms about Animas River impacts near Durango. The risk is small, not gone, experts say.

LA PLATA COUNTY — Officials and experts monitoring a gasoline spill in southwestern Colorado say they are certain — almost — that the nearby Animas River is not at risk. Residents have their doubts.

A pipeline spilled about 23,000 gallons of gasoline in December, releasing benzene and other contaminants into a mesa uphill from the Animas River south of Durango. The underground plume is mainly moving south, not southwest toward the river, but the Animas isn’t fully out of the risk zone, according to experts and a July 30 report. Some local residents remain frustrated by a lack of transparency and worried about the spill’s long-term impacts.

Who’s to say it won’t happen again since the same pipeline goes under the Animas, Patrick Goddard and other local residents asked. 

“I think this pipeline is going to blow up right under the river one day, and when it does that, it’s going to kill every fish in this river,” said Goddard, who owns Rainbow Springs Trout Farm and lives downhill from the spill site. “And then they’re going to get a lot of shit about it.”

A hazmat crew responded to the leak Dec. 5 in a small subdivision within the boundaries of both La Plata County and the Southern Ute Reservation. Residents evacuated homes. The ground’s surface was soaked with the liquid gasoline.

The pipeline is part of Enterprise’s Mid-America Pipeline System, which extends through Texas, New Mexico, Wyoming and other states.

In La Plata County, the Four Corners Lateral Loop passes through farmland and backyards on Florida Mesa, which runs roughly parallel to the Animas River on its western side. Then, the underground pipeline runs down the mesa’s slope, crosses a short stretch of flat fields and extends under the Animas itself before continuing northwest.

The leak was on the mesa near County Road 219 about a half-mile from the river. The pipeline’s leak detection systems didn’t notify Enterprise of the spill, according to The Durango Herald.

Officials initially said the spill was 1,000 gallons, then raised the estimate to roughly 23,000 gallons after Enterprise Products did a more thorough inventory. The new report, which is required to provide volume updates, gave the same total.

(Some residents questioned this total, saying it’d have to be larger to reach the surface or the leak could have started before officials were alerted.)

It’s the sixth largest liquid oil or gas spill in Colorado since 2002, according to the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. The largest of over 80 spills was near Sterling in 2017, when about 420,000 gallons of crude oil was released, the federal records show.

Enterprise Products reported 242 hazardous liquid spills nationwide over the past decade out of about 270 total incidents, according to PHMSA. Two were in Colorado, including the La Plata County spill.

In May, the Southern Ute Indian Tribe issued a statement urging state and federal agencies to act faster, saying they found benzene seepage in springs that run downhill toward the river.

Since the spill, residents have been dealing with conflicting information, especially early in the response. Some said they didn’t trust Enterprise and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, relying instead on the independent consultant, GHD Drilling. Others were frustrated that the state health department wasn’t sharing more information, saying it was supposed to protect them. 

“From day one we wanted to know what caused the spill, and could this happen again?” resident Yumi Johnson said in early July.

PHMSA documentation said the cause was material failure of the pipeline or welding. Enterprise Products’ July report did not elaborate on the investigation into the cause.

Could it impact the Animas?

By and large, officials say the Animas River is not at risk, but they’re monitoring it closely.

“Currently, there are no indications that the Animas River has been impacted or will be impacted in the future,” the CDPHE said in a written response after declining an interview.

The Environmental Protection Agency, which is also monitoring the spill, said it does not have regulatory authority because the latest data does not indicate that contaminants are migrating toward or posing a threat to the Animas River.

“We’ve been watching the data for three months now, give or take,” Eric Sandusky, the EPA’s on-scene coordinator, said in early July. “We’ve been watching to see where it’s migrating. The current indication says that it is not migrating towards the river.”

Most of the contaminant plume is heading south and staying on top of the mesa. That’s because there’s some pretty complex geology that’s keeping it there, he said. It’s difficult to tell how fast the plume moves without more data. During the irrigation season, the movement of water is more active, Sandusky said. 

Seeing contaminants reach the surface at the seep downhill from the spill is significant, said Lesley Sebol, manager of the Groundwater Resources Mission Area for the Colorado Geological Survey who is not involved in the spill response.

The July report said water samples from a seep, located on Bardin Drive downhill from the spill, had benzene concentrations above water quality criteria, and the contaminants have since been contained.

It wasn’t clear from the July report whether the contaminants were in a narrow channel or there wasn’t enough data to understand its full extent, she said. 

Sebol also noted that monitoring at a house very close to the river showed a spike in one of the contaminants, toluene, around April 21. The contaminant did not show up in later reporting, so it was not clear whether that was a data fluke, she said.

If the gasoline were to eventually reach the river, it’d likely be a small enough amount that the water would dilute it, she said.

“It’s not like a huge plume front,” she said. “And so I’m not worried about the river.”

As part of the response, CDPHE has required Enterprise to regularly sample drinking water wells as well as newly added monitoring wells. GHD Drilling, the environmental consultant, is also gathering sampling data.

So far, groundwater samples showed concentrations of gasoline above CDPHE standards only in domestic wells on the mesa within three-tenths mile of the spill location, the Enterprise report said.

Remediation and monitoring will continue until water and soil meet all applicable state and federal standards, CDPHE said. So far, Enterprise has removed 55% of the gasoline that spilled, according to the federal documents.

“While significant progress is being made to remediate this spill, and we expect much of the cleanup to be completed this year, we expect the full cleanup to take several years,” the agency said.

Post-spill life for residents

Since December, the once-quiet neighborhoods off County Road 219 and Bardin Drive have featured heavy machinery, large trucks, new wells and many workers. 

Homes near the spill received water filters and cisterns. Some residents had to stay temporarily in hotels. CDPHE required Enterprise to supply water until residential wells are restored to drinking water standards.

Heather Houk’s house ended up being heavily impacted by the refined gasoline spill. Enterprise sampling turned up volatile organic compounds, like xylenes, benzene, ethylbenzene and toluene.

On June 18, 38 Niente LLC bought Houk’s property for $320,000, according to La Plata County property records. The Houston-based company is listed as a subsidiary of Enterprise Products, according to the company’s Feb. 1 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Houk declined to comment for the story. 

Doug Thurston and his family’s corporation, Weaselskin Farm, own land just south of Houk’s house. Sampling at his son’s house showed gasoline contamination.

“I laid into them once this spill happened: ‘You know, if my grandkids … get cancer 20 years down the road because you guys didn’t fix this, you guys are liable for this,’” Thurston, who lives near the spill’s origin, said in early July. “They put a cistern in pretty quick.”

Benzene is a component of crude oil products and is a caustic short-term threat for headaches and nausea, and a longer-term exposure threat for leukemia and other conditions, according to CDPHE.

As a grass hay farmer, Thurston wasn’t worried about his soil, saying the contaminants were below his farming depth. An irrigation canal, the Mason Lateral, runs through the spill site, but sampling hadn’t shown any signs of contamination as of early July, he said.

There seemed to be “light at the end of the tunnel” as Enterprise Products teams worked to remove contaminated soil, he said.

The pipeline runs directly through resident Yumi Johnson’s property. She said no detectable levels of gasoline have shown up in sampling results from her well.

Community members are left with a long list of questions. What’s the lifecycle of a pipeline? The cleanup process could take years, Johnson said. How long will the toxins be in the ground, and how could they impact residents over the long term? If homes don’t have contamination today, does it mean it won’t happen five years from now? 

And for homeowners, how will the spill affect their property values?

“I don’t think anybody would want to buy in our neighborhood with all of these unknowns,” Johnson said.

The federal pipeline safety administration declined to comment on the average lifecycle of a pipeline and inspection history of Enterprise’s pipeline. The carbon steel pipeline was installed in the 1980s, according to Enterprise filings to PHMSA. 

The incident caused over $6 million in property damage, including to Enterprise, the public and private property owners, according to the filing.

Months after the spill was found, rumors still abounded as residents searched for clarity. Few had time to keep track of the thousands of pages of reports filed by Enterprise and other agencies. Sometimes workers would show up on a property without advanced notice, leaving people frustrated about trespassing and privacy concerns. 

Goddard, who is a veterinarian with a graduate degree in fisheries, said about 80,000 of his fingerling trout died around the time of the spill.

Water for the trout farm comes from groundwater that flows out of natural springs bubbling right out of the mesa’s hillside. Goddard’s family drinks the same water at home, straight from the springs.

About a month after the spill, his water was tested, and officials said it was uncontaminated. That didn’t convince Goddard. He still wants to see modeling to be sure there was never an issue and that the water is safe for his family and the fish. So far, he’s had no luck.

To him, Enterprise’s actions are the minimum needed to placate people, and the overall lack of communication just makes the spill response feel like a cover-up. The CDPHE staff isn’t doing enough to hold Enterprise accountable, he said.

“They’re playing everybody. They’re playing all these farmers. They’re doing just enough to appease people, so they’ll shut their mouths,” Goddard said. “It’s not the loss of the fuel or money, it’s the reputation that they don’t want to lose.”