On March 15, 2024, at 1:17 PM, the EPA was notified by the National
Response Center of a discharge of 10 barrels of crude oil from a tank battery
that is operated by the Blackcat Oil Company (Responsible Party/RP), in Perry,
Noble County, Oklahoma. Crude oil travelled approximately 35 feet into Little
Cow Creek. Little Cow Creek connects to Cow Creek, which connects to Black Bear
Creek, which connects to the Arkansas River. The spill is a minor discharge as
defined in § 300.5 of the National Oil and Hazardous Substances Pollution
Contingency Plan. According to the RP, the
spill was caused by a failure of a saltwater transportation system connected to
the tank battery, which caused saltwater to overfill the tanks and discharge
into Little Cow Creek.
The Oklahoma Corporation Commission (OCC) is also responding to the
incident and due to a discrepancy in estimated crude oil discharge amounts from
the OCC and the RP, EPA's technical assistance contractor was activated to
assess the size of the spill, to document the
RP's efforts to clean-up the spill, and prevent the spill from migrating
further along the spill pathway. The spill location is in the EPA Area of
Responsibility; therefore, EPA is the lead agency.
Updates on the status of the RP’s clean-up activities and EPA’s findings
can be found on the Notices section of this website.
