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Clean Up Continues At Yuut Elitnaurviat Fuel Spill

Three-thousand gallons of diesel fuel have spilled on Bethel’s Yuut Elitnaurviat campus, the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta’s adult workforce development center.
Courtesy of Yuut Elitnaurviat

If you see somebody inspecting under and around the Yuut Elitnaurviat Learning Center, it’s probably an employee of ChemTrack monitoring the fuel spill.

Absorbent boom has been placed around the spill area and 7 cubic yards of contaminated soil are stored on site, waiting for disposal after a 3,000 gallon spill earlier this month. The spill was caused by a fuel transfer pump that was mistakenly left running. Yuut Elitnaurviat's building continues to be in use.
 
In the final Situation Report on the spill, the state Department of Environmental Conservation wrote that the cleanup contractor, Alaska Chadux, demobilized last week, recovering 950 gallons of fuel and 390 bags of oily waste. Yuut Elitnaurviat has contracted with ChemTrak to dispose of the waste and monitor the site until the ground thaws and the cleanup can be completed.

Perhaps the best known broadcasting voice in Alaska, Steve Heimel began his career at a radio station in rural Pennsylvania and worked his way up to two of the nation's Top Ten commercial media markets. He moved to public radio in 1974 for greater creative latitude and moved to Alaska in 1982, working for the statewide Alaska Public Radio Network for 32 years as Managing Editor, morning news announcer and host of the statewide “Talk of Alaska” call-in show.