Route 1 across Conowingo Dam finally has been reopened to traffic following Wednesday night's tanker truck crash on the east side of the dam that left the highway closed throughout Thursday.
Cleanup crews remained on the scene Friday morning to deal with the aftermath of spillage of an estimated 3,000 gallons of diesel fuel, Cecil County's emergency services director said.
Motorists had been detoured from Route 1 on both the Harford and Cecil county sides of the dam following the accident, which occurred just after 11 p.m. Wednesday when the tanker truck hit a guardrail just off the east side of the dam in Cecil County, overturned and became "engulfed in flames," according to Maryland State Police. The driver, who has not been identified, was flown by Medevac helicopter to a regional burn center with what police said were non-life threatening burns and other injuries.
The wreckage was removed Thursday; however, the highway remained closed throughout the day and into the evening while environmental crews dealt with the spilled fuel that remained on the roadway and had also migrated to the nearby Norfolk Southern Railroad tracks and into the Susquehanna River.
Once the road was reopened, State Highway Administration crews stayed on duty at the scene of the diesel spill Friday morning, spreading sand every 45 minutes to keep the surface gritty, Cecil County Department of Emergency Services Director Richard Brooks said about 10 a.m.
Workers were still pumping fuel up from the inside of the dam, Brooks said.
"There's still plenty of work," he said. "They'll be there for quite some time as the diesel fuel comes to the surface."
The diesel fuel that did get into the river was not expected to affect public water supplies in Port Deposit and Havre de Grace which are downriver from the dam, a Maryland Department of the Environment spokesman said Thursday.