Delivery Company Spills Oil In Basement at Ed School

A fuel delivery company spilled 3,000 gallons of oil in the basement of a building at the Harvard Graduate School of Education early Wednesday morning, school officials said yesterday.

The spill occurred while Grimes Oil Company of Boston was making a delivery to Longfellow Hall, according to Robert Gewecky, the school's director of fiscal and administrative services.

Maintenance crews discovered an inch of heating oil covering the basement floor when they arrived to open the building at 6 a.m. Workers immediately called the Harvard Control Center, which notified the Cambridge Police Department, the Cambridge Fire Department and Clean Harbors, an environmental service company, Gewecky said.

The free-standing oil was completely removed by a vacuum truck by 2 p.m. and the building's boilers were restarted. Exhaust fans were run through the night to remove remaining particles of oil from the air.

Longfellow was closed yesterday, initially because of the fire hazard and then because of the oil fumes. "They were not toxic and in no way dangerous, but very unpleasant," said Richard Carol of Grimes Oil.

Carol said he did not know whether the spill resulted from a fault in the tank or an overflow. Harvard Police reports indicate that the spill was caused by the tank's being overfilled.