Environment Department On Recent Oil Leak
The oil spill “was not evident at sea the next day having drifted to the north,” and “we were very lucky that the conditions were very helpful to deploy and recover boom and that the wind was off-shore,” the Department of Environment and Natural Resources [DENR] said following the oil leak earlier this week at the St George’s pipelines.
On January 23rd, Sol Petroleum Bermuda Limited [Sol] confirmed that there was a “release of an estimated four barrels of heavy fuel oil from one of the pipelines at the St. Georges Terminal.”
“Sol immediately ceased use of the pipeline, isolated and stopped the leak successfully. Sol activated its Incident Command Team to control the situation and commenced the clean-up process immediately,” the company said.
“The incident was reported promptly to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources [DENR], which joined the team at the facility to support the management of the situation.”
A DENR spokesperson told Bernews, “The estimated amount of Heavy Fuel Oil that leaked cannot be determined but is estimated to be 200 gallons.
“A small hole developed in an oil transfer pipe located at the SOL site that was under pressure, which is what caused the leak. The leak was isolated and boom deployed along the shoreline, at the end of the pier and at sea using 5 vessels.
“DENR were notified by SOL and attended the site with the DENR Fisheries boat offshore estimating the spread over time. SOL and their contractors were able to deploy boom to collect a measurable amount of oil.
“The spill was not evident at sea the next day – having drifted to the north. We were very lucky that the conditions were very helpful to deploy and recover boom and that the wind was off-shore.”
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Category: All, Environment
Another reason to go the direction of solar and wind rather than LNG. The last thing we need now with our failing tourism product is environmental damage!!!