150-gallon diesel spill in truck crash ties up Rt. 315 traffic

A diesel fuel spill snarled state Route 315 in Pittston Township for about four hours on Monday until it was cleaned up and the road was reopened.

Around 9:30 a.m., a tractor-trailer owned by VIP Line Inc. of Lancaster, Calif., pulled out of the Arby’s restaurant near the Interstate 81 exit and hit a northbound dump truck owned by P&W Construction of Olyphant, causing fuel to spill from the dump truck’s tank.

About 150 gallons were released, said Stephen Bekanich, the county Emergency Management Agency coordinator, but “almost all of it” was sopped up with absorbent materials.

“There may have been a few gallons that migrated away before emergency units arrived at the scene,” he said, adding that some spilled into a storm sewer and onto the ground on the road’s shoulder.

Datom Products, a hazardous-materials unit out of Dunmore, was brought in to dispose of the material at a hazardous-waste landfill, Bekanich said.

The crash is still under investigation, Pittston Township police Chief Stephen Rinaldi said, but he noted it was “definitely the tractor-trailer’s fault.”