Longview home’s oil mystery solved
By JOHN LYNCHIt was oil a mistake. Authorities have discovered the cause of the Monday gusher at a Spring Hill home: a sewer line accidentally patched into a saltwater disposal line.
"Obviously, someone wasn't hooking things up right," said Lance Lunsford, spokesman for the Texas Railroad Commission, which had been investigating. "Nobody I've talked to has seen anything like it."
Lunsford said when the disposal line backed up Monday, the oil surged up the pipes at Liela LeTourneau's home on Terri Lynn Drive, drenching it in Texas Tea. She found her home had been flooded with oil when she got home from work Monday night and saw oil trickling from under her front door.
Keith Bonds, Longview public works director, confirmed the commission's account. He said the city crew that was supposed to hook the LeTourneau line to the sewer system instead connected her to the disposal line that belongs to East Texas Saltwater Disposal Co., a 62-year-old Kilgore business. Efforts to contact the company late Wednesday were unsuccessful.
Bonds said the work crew had no idea the disposal line was on LeTourneau's property. He said sewer and disposal lines are the same size, but the sewer line is buried deeper.
"It looks like a sewer line. We didn't know they were there, and they looked like us," he said. "We were a couple of feet off" from the real sewer line.
Bonds said the city hires a service to survey property for underground lines before sewer lines are run. The company did not have any record of the disposal line because ET Saltwater does not register with them, Bonds said.
He said ET Saltwater might not have obtained the required city license for the line. The city issues hundreds of those permits every year, Bonds said, and clerks were still checking those records late Wednesday.
It took more than two years to discover the mistake because the line was empty when the city crew tapped in. The oil spewed into LeTourneau's home when the disposal line backed up.
LeTourneau is moving into a rental home paid for by her insurance. Faced with the loss of her home and many of her possessions, she was not happy about the mistake, fearing she and her son have suffered two years of exposure to toxic gases from the disposal line. Firefighters evacuated her home Monday night because the fumes from the spilled oil are dangerous.
"I paid for two years for sewer services that I didn't get," she said. "I got chemicals and gases. My house has actually been a vent ... for that pipeline for two years."
She also was skeptical of the city's account. LeTourneau, who spent the past two days watching crews dig up her front and back yards, said the city line is green, while the disposal line is blue.
Mayor Murray Moore visited with LeTourneau on Wednesday. He said it's too soon to assign blame, but the city will do the right thing if found at fault. He said he's hopeful that all parties involved will be able to work out a fair solution.
Another article from yesterday......
Crude Oil Bubbles Up Into Woman's Home
She sounds all lawyered up.