Contaminated groundwater from a 51-year-old fuel spill at 15.5 Mile Haines Highway appears to be leaching into the Chilkat River slough, raising concerns about environmental damage.
The source of the contaminants was the 626-mile-long Haines-Fairbanks pipeline, used in the middle of the century to transport fuel from the Lutak Tank Farm to military installations in Interior Alaska. A 1968 leak in the now-decommissioned pipe spilled nearly 34,000 gallons of jet fuel into the surrounding soil.