Highrise resident alerts Warren cops to river spill

WARREN

The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency says used motor oil leaked from an open valve on an 800-gallon tank at W.T.R. Services Inc., 2421 W. Market St., on Wednesday and traveled into the Mahoning River through a storm sewer.

The valve was left open because of human error, said Lindey Amer, OEPA spokeswoman. The oil was being transferred from an 800-gallon tank to a 200-gallon tank so that it could be placed in a burn furnace.

The oil was discovered on the river at around 9:30 a.m. Thursday by a resident on the eighth floor of the Buckeye Apartment Building on Tod Avenue Northwest next to the river. Authorities were notified, triggering work by the Warren Fire Department, Warren Water Pollution Control Department, Trumbull County HazMat and others to control the spill with booms on the river.

Amer said she doesn’t know how much oil was released, but the OEPA thinks most of it was contained by the booms. At noon today, a light amount of oil was still entering the river through a large storm-sewer pipe along Tod Avenue Northwest, across from Perkins Park, just west of downtown.

Read more about the situation in Friday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.