Romeoville butane leak evacuates area, closes roads
By Tony Graf tgraf@stmedianetwork.com May 14, 2011 6:48PM
Traffic wasn't allowed to turn onto Weber Road from Normantown Road on Saturday, May 14, 2011, due to a butane leak at Weber and 135th Street in Romeoville, Ill. | Terence Guider-Shaw~For Sun-Times Media
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Updated: September 29, 2011 12:36AM
ROMEOVILLE — HazMat crews remained at the scene of a large butane leak in Romeoville until the early morning hours on Sunday. Local roads are expected to remain closed until sometime later in the day.
Crews must flush out sewers in the area where liquied butane has collected and is posing a risk of explosion, said police Chief Mark Turvey.
Until that work is completed - probably sometime Sunday, Turvey said - an 800-foot area will remain evacuated and stretches of Weber Road and Romeo Road (135th Street), will remain closed.
’An 8-inch pipeline owned by ONEOK Inc. began leaking butane Saturday afternoon.
Police do not know what caused the leak, but Turvey said butane was coming from two locations: the northeast and southeast corners of Weber Road and 135th Street.
The Romeoville Fire Department established an 800-foot evacuation area because there is a potential for explosion from the fumes, Turvey said.
Traffic was prohibited or restricted in a large area of the village Saturday night — on Weber Road from Normantown Road on the north to Lakewood Falls Drive on the south, and west of the Village Hall on Sunset Point.
Butane is a colorless, highly flammable gas. Distant ignition sources can cause butane vapors or gases to ignite and flash back.
Megan Washbourne, a spokeswoman for Oneok Inc., said late Saturday that there were no injuries and the cause of the leak still was being investigated.
“The leak has been isolated. There is no potential danger at this time,” Washbourne said. “From what we understand, there are no potential environmental impacts either.”
Residents evacuated
As of 9:30 p.m., Paul Welk still was waiting, after more than three hours, to get back to his home in the Carillon development just west of Weber and 135th.
Welk was returning home from church around 5 p.m. when he was stopped by the police roadblock on Weber Road at Lakewood Falls Drive.
He continued on, stopping at three other roadblocks before finally being told that he could not enter his neighborhood because of the leak, Welk said.
Welk still was waiting at 9:30 p.m. Saturday at Romeoville Village Hall, just east of the roadblock denying access to Weber.
“I couldn’t go home, so I just stopped here, and I’ve been waiting,” he said.
“Fortunately, it’s not winter anymore. It feels like it,” he said of Saturday night’s rainy and chilly weather.
ONEOK Inc.
ONEOK was founded in 1906 in Oklahoma as a intrastate natural gas pipeline business. Butane and butane mixes are among the gases the national company transports today.
ONEOK Partners operates thousands of miles of natural gas pipelines and delivers the products to a hub and terminal in the Chicago suburbs.
“We use a number of inspection methods and processes to mitigate corrosion, third-party damage and other outside forces that may affect these pipelines,” the company’s website states.
Not the first local leak
Romeoville police and fire personnel were receiving aid from many local agencies Saturday night, Turvey said. Pipeline leaks aren’t new for the Romeoville area emergency responders.
In September, an Enbridge Energy Partners pipeline leaked for three days, spewing thousands of barrels worth of crude oil into sewage and drainage systems in the 700 block of Parkwood Avenue. The industrial park became a “hot zone” with a toxic atmosphere.
About three months later, in December, an oil spill shut down New Avenue from Archer Avenue in Lockport to 135th Street in Romeoville. A 12-inch pipeline going into the Citgo Refinery had been leaking into a wetland area.
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