Top 5 things you need to know about the hidden spill under the national mall fuel cleanup efforts
- Emergency crews are now injecting bacteria and chemicals directly into the soil to break down a massive, decades-old fuel leak beneath the National Mall, a contamination plume that has been silently spreading beneath the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. The cleanup is more urgent than experts initially thought. - The source of the contamination was a buried, 20,000-gallon diesel fuel tank, used for backup generators, that had been leaking for an estimated 15 to 20 years before it was finally discovered during a routine soil survey last fall. - The fuel has already reached the groundwater table, posing a direct threat to the fragile cherry blossom trees and the historic Tidal Basin ecosystem, with scientists racing to contain the "fuel lens" before it seeps into the Potomac River. - This is not a surface-level wash; workers are drilling 60-foot-deep injection wells to pump oxygen-enhancing compounds and engineered microbes deep into the earth to digest the hydrocarbons, a process that will take at least three to five years. - To the public's surprise, parts of the Mall near the World War II Memorial are now temporarily fenced off and closed to tourists, with officials warning of a faint, chemical-like odor in the air for the next several weeks as the soil venting process kicks into high gear.