Charlottetown Petro-Canada gas leak site cleanup halted until spring

The PEI Department of Environment, Energy and Climate Action. says cleanup of a leak at a Charlottetown gas station has been suspended until the spring due to winter conditions.

In an email to CBC News, a department spokesperson said the mobile extraction system that had been on site at Charlottetown Petro-Canada since September 12 to clean up a gas leak was shut down on December 19.

The August leak was originally reported as a loss of 4,500 liters of gasoline from tanks under the Petro-Canada location at the corner of Belvedere and University Avenues.

Consultants were called in to clean up the site. An Environment Department official told CBC News on September 1 that there was « a protective sump in this area in which they found gasoline, but not all of the 4,500 liters they were looking for. » .

At the time, the department said the location owner reported that the computer system that tracks station volumes « may have malfunctioned, resulting in an overestimate of the reported gasoline loss. » However, the department official said this is still unconfirmed.

In an email just before Christmas, the department told CBC News there was no updated estimate of how much gas might have leaked.

No one at the department was available for an interview.