OEPA investigating yet another spill at egg farm

MARSEILLES, Ohio — Buckeye Egg Farm is being investigated by the Ohio Environmental Protection Service for yet another spill, this time of fuel oil.



The spill was reported May 20, and investigators have been tearing out cattails and removing bank ever since to try to determine what damage might have been done.



The Buckeye Egg facility is located next to the Kildeer Plains Wildlife Area, and there was some concern at first that animals might have been killed or injured.



But, according to OEPA spokesman Heather Lauer, the damage appears now to have been minor.



She said the investigators could see the fuel oil on top of the water, and the spill doesn’t appear to have gone very far off the Buckeye Egg property.



There are cattails in the stream there, she said, which impeded the flow.



The leak came from an above-ground fuel oil tank that contained 12,000 gallons. A pipe leading from the tank ruptured, and more than 1,000 gallons of oil spilled out into a ditch, then ran into a retention pond and finally spilled over into a small tributary of the Tymochtee Creek.



Any charges that result from the spill, Lauer said, will be referred to the attorney general’s office to be added to those that are already being litigated against Buckeye Egg.