About 400 gallons of oil leaked into the ground surrounding a Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology research facility last week, according to its director, Lyman Professor of Biology Andrew A. Biewener.
Biewener said that only a small portion of the leak had spread into the wetlands surrounding the Concord Field Station (CFS) and that he did not expect the spill to affect the environment.
The CFS, which he said is located in a "fairly remote" area outside Boston, studies local animal movements and plant structures.
The oil seeped into an underground bunker, where pumps designed to empty the basin of groundwater released it outside the CFS.
The leak was reported Friday afternoon.
However, CFS administrators did not realize the gravity of the leak until Monday, according to Biewener, when they discovered that the oil had spread.
"We were lucky that we caught it when we did," he said.
"It was only when we realized that it had moved off-site to a greater distance than we had expected that we realized immediate reaction was needed," he added.
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