Roosevelt Roads JP5; Roosevelt Roads Navy Base, Puerto Rico

Roosevelt Roads Navy Base, Puerto Rico | 1999-Oct-20

Initial Notification: At approximately 0100 on October 20, 1999 personnel at the US Navy Base Roosevelt Roads, Puerto Rico reported a spill of JP5 fuel from a day-tank near hanger 200. The cause is under investigation by USN, including the Judge Advocate General's office, but it is clear that a valve was left open which overfilled a day tank, fed from a larger storage facility. Initially, the USN reported to the National Response Center that 1,000 gallons of fuel had been spilled. Soon after that report, the amount was updated to 20,000 gallons and then to 100,000 gallons. The official spillage finally was determined to be 112,000 gallons. The oil flowed from the day tank into an underground drainage pipe, which runs under a runway and several roads for several hundred yards. The pipe empties into an open drainage ditch, which drains to a 29-acre mangrove forest. This forest drains through a culvert into Ensenada Honda Bay (a.k.a.: Ensenada Bay). The USN's primary environmental concern was the bay. In the face of an approaching hurricane, USN Construction Battalion (a.k.a.: Sea Bees) personnel constructed a dam or plug at the culvert between the first impacted mangrove (later named "mangrove A") and the mangrove adjacent to the bay (later named "mangrove C"). This dam trapped the water in mangrove A, creating a buffer between the oil and the mangrove pneumatophores. USCG district 7. Keyword: NOSC, mangrove, JP5, underflow dam.