One month after more than 1,000 gallons of oil leaked out of an underground tank at a Wakefield concrete company, state officials say no oil has leaked into the nearby Mill River, private wells, or utility tunnels in the area.

"They haven’t detected any large areas of oil within the soil, and they haven’t found any evidence of any large contaminated pools near the tank that was pulled," said Joseph Ferson, spokesperson for the Massachusetts Department of Enviormental Protection (DEP). "There's no evidence of contamination in any utility tunnels or lines or anything like that. There are commercial and residential properties nearby, but no private wells are affected, and the nearby Mill River is not showing any oil sheening or any visual signs of oil leaking into the river," he said.

Background
The Wakefield company, J.G. Maclellan Concrete Company, located at 1 New Salem Street in Wakefield, filled a 1,000 gallon underground oil storage tank on Tuesday, January 3rd. By the next day, the entire tank was empty, indicating the oil had leaked out into the ground.

The company hired Commonwealth Tank to do an investigation and an excavation of loose underground oil, reportedly finding up to 200 cubic yards of contaminated soil, said Joseph Ferson, spokeman for the Mass DEP.

Month-long cleanup
Ferson said the company has already pulled the damaged tank from the ground, and they've hired other professionals to do additional probing of the soil and dig wells around the perimeter of the area to ensure all contaminated soil is removed.

J.G. McLellan was not out of compliance with Massachusetts standards at the time of the accident, Ferson said, but the DEP will continued to look into the cleanup process and ensure it's done properly.

"They have to submit an immediate response plan to us within 60 days, so we're continuing to montior the situation," he said.