Gasoline Spill Poisoning Pulaski County Caves A Hint of What the Bluegrass Pipeline Could Do

Emergency management officials are scrambling to mop up the gasoline from a tanker accident that is contaminating a popular cave system and surrounding homes.

Some of the fuel entered an intermittent stream that feeds a local cave system, which complicates matters. It is not expected to have widespread effects, but the department is taking precautionary measures to ensure protection of human health and the environment, Scott said. That means dams and recovery points have been constructed in the stream to help remove the fuel and the department is teaming with local cave experts and a consultant with the company responsible for the spill to monitor the air inside the caves and make sure fuel has not entered the main part of the cave.

Information has been posted at cave entrances, warning of potential hazardous conditions from fuel vapors. Also, area residents who might be affected by gasoline vapors in the caves have been alerted and advised to monitor their basements for gasoline odors, Scott said.

But there won't be any way to mop up the toxic fracking waste that will poison the entire Central Kentucky watershed when - not if - the proposed Bluegrass Pipeline leaks, ruptures or explodes.

Central Kentucky, like Pulaski County, is riddled with limestone caves and karst rock that quickly absorb contaminants and rapidly spread them throughout the interconnected groundwater system and eventually into the Kentucky and Ohio River and other drinking water sources.

The proposed Bluegrass Pipeline is a clear and present danger to health and safety of hundreds of thousands of Central Kentuckians, not to mention the survival of the Commonwealth's signature industries - horses, agriculture, bourbon - and its economic lifeblood.

The handful of temporary construction jobs and the pocket change in property taxes it might provide - other communities polluted by the company learned otherwise the hard way - cannot compensate for the risk the pipeline poses.

Find out more here, and join the effort to stop the Bluegrass Pipeline.