One Killed In Gasoline Tanker Crash

MAPLETON, Ore. (AP) - A tanker truck hit a pickup and plunged off a winding highway near the central Oregon Coast today, killing one person and spilling thousands of gallons of gasoline near a creek that is home to threatened salmon.

The driver of the truck escaped serious injury in the accident, which happened at 5:30 a.m. on State Highway 126 five miles east of this western Oregon town.

A passenger in the pickup was killed. State Police spokesman Lt. Gregg Hastings said deputies searched the underbrush at the scene for anyone else who may have been thrown from the vehicle.

The tanker truck held 11,000 gallons of gasoline, but had spilled only 2,800 gallons. The fuel saturated the ground about 100 feet from the creek, said Jennifer Boudin, spokeswoman for the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality.

The truck operator, Ron's Oil of Coquille, hired a cleanup crew to remove the remaining gasoline from the tanker truck as well as the contaminated dirt, to prevent gasoline from reaching the creek, Boudin said.

Downstream from the wreck, gasoline could kill juvenile coho and chinook salmon, steelhead and sea-run cutthroat trout living in deep pools, said David Bayles, conservation director of the Pacific Rivers Council. The coho are listed as a threatened species.

The highway, the major route between Eugene and the coast, was closed because of the accident.