ROSELAND — A man who lives near Smitty’s Supply and flies a drone regularly over the area affected by the business’ explosion and fire says recent heavy rains may have spread contaminated water to the Tangipahoa River.
MORE | One Month Later: More than 5 million gallons cleaned up
Michael Constant, who has been monitoring the waterways around Smitty’s Supply since the August explosion and fire, said it appears to him that heavy rain in early March caused water in contaminated ponds to flow into the river or into ditches that drain into the river.
“I got footage of the water coming over the dam, going in the river,” Constant said showing UWK video as proof.
He said he believes the ponds are heavily contaminated and that authorities aren’t watching the site closely enough. He said he’s also concerned that officials are only reacting to the visible oil sheen that is easily recognizable as a spill.
“But all the other stuff that was in the water got sucked to the bottom, got in the mud, stayed and built up, and when it flooded, it pushes it out, flushes it all into the river,” he said.
A spokesman for Smitty’s Supply’s public relations firm acknowledged that the control measures in place could not keep up with the water on March 7, when the area got heavy rain.
“It was physically impossible to capture all of the stormwater,” a prepared statement provided by the PR company said. “Containment and absorbent boom systems remained in place, but some overtopping and erosion occurred at the underflow dams.”
The statement said the booms put in place to keep contaminated water from getting into other waterways did not detach, although they may have appeared to be disconnected.
“As water levels receded, the system returned to its normal positioning,” the statement said.
The company is taking several steps to manage the dams and booms.
“Repairs are currently underway, and improvements are being implemented across all underflow dams,” the Smitty’s statement said.
The dam at Underflow 2 is being “upgraded to increase capacity and better manage higher water flow, helping to prevent future overfilling or overtopping,” the statement said.
It also said regulatory agencies are notified of “each stormwater discharge event.”
The federal Environmental Protection Agency referred questions about the site to Louisiana’s Department of Environmental Quality.
DEQ spokeswoman Meagan Molter told UWK that DEQ is doing weekly site visits to check the conditions and make sure that “previously implemented control measures remain in place.”
She said the ponds are part of the natural drainage system and ponds do overflow and drain toward the Tangipahoa River in heavy rains. Those rains can also cause booms to shift. They are checked during site visits as well, she added.
Constant said he doesn’t think officials are watching the site and its runoff closely enough, so he flies over the area with his drone almost daily.
“It’s almost like it is getting worse, where they’re getting in the river, and nobody’s trying to stop it. Everybody’s trying to ignore it,” he said.
Constant said he is afraid the impact is broader than people recognize. Smitty’s got state approval to release one million gallons of treated water a day into the ditches along the site.
“Even if the water is clean, it’s the ditches,” he said. “All that ground is still contaminated. So you pour in clean water all over this contaminated dirt and all it does is wash it down into the ponds and into the rivers.”
Constant said something similar happened during heavy rain in January, to the point that the pond became part of the river until rainwaters receded.
MORE: Smitty’s Supply faces federal lawsuit after fiery explosion, oil spill in Tangipahoa Parish
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