COLUMN: Northport Deserves Accountability Following Oil Spill

*This is an opinion column*

NORTHPORT, AL — Sam Key crouched in her heavy rubber boots and gathered a sample in an empty plastic bottle from a large pool of stagnate water. The odor downhill from a Northport trucking repair business was overpowering and chemical, reminiscent of a mix of mildew and diesel fuel.

Even as I write this column, I have a pounding headache and my nose has been pouring for over an hour after I joined Key on a walkthrough of the oil spill site near the southern end of the property owned by Burgess Truck & Equipment Repair.

Key, a resident of Palmetto Street in Huntington Gardens, warned me ahead of time about the fumes and the smell, but I didn't understand it until I was ankle deep in dead, fuel-soaked earth. She also expressed frustration at the lack of transparency by officials.

"They weren't even going to notify people had we not put this on Facebook. We had asked questions, we were trying to get ADEM and the EPA to see if a report had been filed, and they couldn't give me that information." - Sam Key, Palmetto Street resident.

To her point, it's obvious to the naked eye that foliage and undergrowth in the impacted area has been completely wiped out. In puddles, the rainbow sheen of some kind of petroleum product is visible in the glimmer of the sunlight.

Emily Burns and her husband also live on Palmetto Street with their two children, roughly 100 yards from the site of the spill.

"We first noticed the chemical odor almost a week ago," she told Patch. "We didn’t think too much of it until it started getting stronger instead of going away. A few residents had also noticed the odor and decided to walk towards it to see what was going on."

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Burns said once residents began investigating for themselves, they found the spill site in the marsh area bordering the end of Palmetto Street directly behind the Burgess property, in addition to noticing signs of a petroleum spill through the creek that runs nearly the entire perimeter of the neighborhood.

"It wasn’t just a little residue either ... there was a significant amount," Burns said. "You could tell Burgess knew what was happening because they’d laid sand bags and oil sponges across the creek bed in an attempt to contain it."

Key and one other resident of Huntington Gardens claimed that Spectrum Environmental Services had been seen in recent days at the site, placing out oil spill booms — or floating barriers for containing an oil spill.

I was also able to confirm that local emergency officials also placed booms prior to Spectrum, but Key pointed to one section of the stream with a noticeable buildup of oil behind the boom.

"Spectrum put out booms and you can see the boom isn't even placed properly, there's water flowing around it," she said. Sandbags were also placed out in an attempt to dam the stream, which feeds into Carroll's Creek and on to Lake Tuscaloosa, representing drinking water for thousands.

Patch reported on Saturday when Northport Fire officials confirmed the investigation by state and federal authorities, but stopped short of naming the company and said the spill had not reached Carroll's Creek.

While I can confirm the situation has been on the radar of authorities for well over a week, Key and Burns both said residents were left with no choice but to notify each other of the source of the smell and take to social media to let the wider public know.

"Ultimately we were told from other residents that there had been an oil spill from [Burgess] that was causing the odor and residue leaking into our properties," Burns said. "At this point, no city official or Burgess rep had contacted residents to let them know what was happening or that we should be cautious. As a parent, it’s disturbing because children play outside constantly, and we are worried about the potential risk those fumes and/or residue posed to them in the days we weren’t aware of the issues severity."

As for the smell, Patch reported in March when the Northport Police Department began receiving complaints from Huntington residents of a foul, chemical odor that was noticeable in the neighborhood. Upon inspection of the site, this also lines up with the possibility that the spill had been ongoing for much longer than many realize.

Key first discovered the spill after a friend's dog got out, prompting a chase which led them to the site. It's worth noting that I have also received numerous reports from residents of the surrounding neighborhoods after their dogs came back covered in oil or smelling like diesel fuel.

"We heard from a friend they were getting tons of reports of people passing out from a gas smell, then we come back here and we find that," she said behind her mask, nudging her head toward the large stagnate pool.

She then mentioned the proximity of the spill to Huntington Place Elementary, which is only a short walk away through the tree line.

"Kids are complaining about headaches who have never had them before, having stomach issues and you weren't going to tell anybody?" she said of the response on the part of local officials and the company. "I have no doubt at all that's where the smell is coming from, you have people out here cutting grass and will nearly pass out and when the wind blows right, you can smell it inside of my friend's house."

The City of Northport formally acknowledged the situation on Facebook late Saturday night, saying ADEM, the EPA, and Tuscaloosa County EMA are currently overseeing a cleanup of petroleum products near the site, while being the first governmental body to name the company as a potential source.

Northport Councilwoman Jamie Dykes represents the district where the spill is located and voiced her concerns to Patch on Sunday, while also expressing confidence in the response from Northport Fire Rescue.

"Chief Bart Marshall and his team have done an incredible job containing this area until ADEM, EPA and EMA could be on scene," she said.

"I know the investigation is ongoing and as I am given information, I will pass this along to our residents. I want everyone to know this is a priority with the City of Northport and we are taking every precautionary measure we can to get this situation completely under control" - District 4 Councilwoman Jamie Dykes.

As she left the spill site Sunday morning, Key doubled back to her points about the wider negative effects posed by the spill.

"They need to be responsible for medical bills, not to mention if this plummets the market value of their homes ... that's a big deal," she said. "You're basically taking a large sum of money out of their pockets and killing them at the same time."

There has yet to be a formal complaint logged with the Alabama Department of Environmental Management and the investigation, according to officials, remains ongoing.

In an effort to give residents and officials the chance to have a dialogue on the issue, Tuscaloosa Patch is actively working to organize a Northport Town Hall event and will provide more details in the coming days.

It is my hope that those responsible for this environmental disaster will be held accountable for what they knew, when they knew it and what they did to stop it, if anything. Moments like this underscore the importance of civic engagement and activism, so I urge the residents of the surrounding area to speak up and demand action.

If you are one of the residents impacted by this spill and want to share your story or have questions/concerns, please email me at ryan.phillips@patch.com.