A fuel tank being trucked to St. John’s E&C gas station from the Hovensa refinery on St. Croix spilled as much as 1,000 gallons of gasoline, according to the V.I. Fire Service, when it rubbed against the barge carrying it and was punctured.
But the manager of E&C, Myrtle Barry, disputed the amount of the spill, detailed in a statement from the V.I. Territorial Emergency Management Agency.
“It definitely was not that amount,” she said.
Barry also said the size of the puncture, which the Fire Service put at five inches across, was not that large.
The accident happened around 2:15 p.m. at Enighed Pond Marine Terminal. The tank was on a truck being barged from St. Croix to St. John. E&C hired Boynes Trucking System Inc. to transport fuel from the St. Croix refinery to the St. John gas station.
The leaking tank was moved to a nearby empty lot. Barry said that Boynes Trucking borrowed a tank from Love City Car Ferries. Using a pump, it transferred much of the fuel from the punctured tank to the borrowed tank.
Boynes Trucking owner James Boynes said he didn’t want to talk about the fuel spill.
“I’ll have to take a rain check on this conversation,” he said.
VITEMA said that the fuel spilled onto the barge, into the water and onto the earth under the leaking tank. The amount of fuel that spilled into the water was not determined.
The Public Works Department created a dirt barrier around the lot to prevent the leaking oil from spreading to adjacent areas. The spill was fully contained by 5 p.m.
The tank contained 10,000 gallons of fuel in five compartments. According to the VITEMA press release, the punctured tank contained 3,000 gallons of premium gas.
Barry said that because it was possible to recover so much of the fuel, St. John won’t face a shortage of premium gas. E&C is the island’s only gas station.
Fire Chief Winnie Powell could not be reached for comment early Friday evening.
The Police Department cordoned off the road from the V.I. Water and Power Authority’s treatment plant to the Cruz Bay tennis courts to keep traffic out.
