BELCO Oil/Water Spill Clean Up Continues
Bermuda Electric Light Company (BELCO) continues work to clean up and make repairs, after an oil and water spill that occurred at the company’s Oily Water Treatment Plant on Saturday, 31 July, after several days of heavy rain.
Clean-up work is also ongoing at a neighbour’s property; this includes temporarily relocating several banana trees and cane plants, so that grass and soil can be removed, then replaced.
Representatives of BELCO’s Environment Business Centre and the Ministry of Environment have met to review the spill and agree next steps. BELCO will continue to work closely with the Ministry throughout the clean-up and remediation proceces.
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 July 31st, rainwater had flooded the system, causing the oil-and-water mixture to overflow.
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.
The photo below shows the canal right outside BELCO, where small amounts of oil could be seen swirling through the water at 6pm yesterday [Aug 1]:
