Heavy Rains Lead to Oil & Water Spill at BELCO

The estimated four inches of rain that has fallen on the Island since last Wednesday led to a spill at Bermuda Electric Light Company (BELCO).

At approximately 5:20 PM on Saturday July 30, BELCO workers reported seeing oil on the ground near the company’s Oily Water Treatment Plant (OWTP), where waste oil is separated from water, processed and containerized for shipment overseas where it is recycled. By yesterday (July 31), rainwater had flooded the system, causing the oil-and-water mixture to overflow.

Immediately, BELCO’s Major Environmental Emergency Contingency Plan was set in motion with teams working to contain the spill with absorbent materials, including booms across the Pembroke Canal that runs through the Central Plant. At the same time, a BELCO incident command team was called, including representatives of the company’s operations, administration, environment and safety departments, arriving at the C. Eugene Cox Operations Centre by 6:30 PM to coordinate and monitor the containment and clean-up effort.

Simultaneously, Bermuda Fire Service, Ministry of the Environment and Works & Engineering were notified, and contractors were called in to assist. BELCO estimates that 600-700 gallons of the oil-and-water mixture spilled, with evidence today that an adjacent, low-lying property, which was also saturated with rainwater, has also been affected. In total, approximately 3,600 gallons of oil and water were pumped from BELCO’s OWTP to reduce the amount of liquid in the tanks yesterday, with discharge to the Government Hazardous Waste Facility.

An additional four loads, at 1,800 gallons each, have been pumped from the neighbouring property today and discharged to the OWTP for processing. Approximately 70% of the liquid recovered is water, with the remaining 30% waste oil. Clean-up work is expected to continue for several days with booms remaining in Pembroke Canal throughout the process. Investigation of the incident is ongoing.

The photo below shows the canal right outside BELCO, where small amounts of oil could be seen swirling through the water at 6pm today [Aug 1]:

#BELCO #OilAndEnergy

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