By George P. Hassett

An oil leak at the Department of Public Works (DPW) yard was detected Thursday during soil and water testing, said City Environmental Programs Manager Peter Mills.  The leak is in the feeder-line system connected to an underground tank at 1 Franey Rd., Mills said.

The 4,000-gallon tank, which had been tested separately at the request of the city’s Fire Department, did not appear to be the source of the leak, he said.

Mills said Somerville has faced more than its fair share of oil leak problems this year, possibly due to aging infrastructure.  A Christmas-weekend leak in a basement-level oil feeder-line at Somerville High School resulted in a 1,300-gallon spill of heating oil.  Remediation work continues at the school, which reopened Jan. 4, and over 1,100 gallons of the recovered oil have been filtered for reuse in the heating system, Mills said.

‚ÄúIt‚Äôs frustrating, of course,‚Äù he said. ‚ÄúBut our infrastructure is aging, and we have to expect a certain amount of trouble.  These problems have been around for a long time, and they won‚Äôt vanish overnight.‚Äù

Vithal Deshpande, the city’s environmental coordinator, said the city found the leak after the fire prevention unit requested tests on tanks 1 and 3 at the DPW yard. The tanks did not have leaks, he said.

‚ÄúOur consultants from Commonwealth Tank discovered the presence of oil near tank 1 while they were installing the test well late last Thursday.  We notified the state‚Äôs Department of Environmental Protection, and we are now working under their supervision to identify the source of the leak, assess the extent of the problem, pump out the affected groundwater and perform the necessary soil remediation,‚Äù he said.

Deshpande said it was too early to say how much oil was released because of the leak.

‚ÄúBut at first look it seems as if the leak was in a feeder line that isn‚Äôt under constant use or pressure ‚Äì which may have limited the outflow,‚Äù he said.  ‚ÄúUnfortunately, we don‚Äôt know how long leakage may have been occurring in these pipes, which are at least fifteen years old ‚Äì and possibly much older.‚Äù 

He said the leak posed no immediate health or safety threat and that DPW operations were not affected.

Mills said he would issue a full remediation report once tests had been completed and analyzed.