Our Projects
Haulage Firm
Northern
Ireland
What Occurred? – Oil spill on a river
A major haulage company in Northern Ireland had an oil spill from one of their depots. The fuel made its way to a storm drain that led to a major river in Northern Ireland and the Northern Ireland Environment Agency became involved. The river was protected by a number of pieces of legislation and beyond it being an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty the area of impact was a resource for Angling clubs, Dog walkers and Nature lovers. Oil spills on rivers should always be actioned as soon as possible.
Solution
An initial response was instigated within minutes and several teams of trained responders were at the site within 30 mins. An initial response was carried out to contain the spillage whilst the incident was fully assessed by Gaea’s experienced environmental scientists. Excess was poor but the required equipment was brought to designated work points on the river. The storm drain that was transporting the fuel was closed at its discharge point massively reducing any further release to the river. The storm drain was accessed from above by digging down through agricultural land and carefully breaking through the concrete pipe. Dedicated pumps and storage tanks were brought to site and the diesel pumped out of the pipe to temporary storage. Tankers were then arranged to take the collected fuel to a recycling facility.
Outcome
The river was returned to its pre incident state and after a period of monitoring to ensure no more oil was going to be released we were able to decommission all of our equipment from the site and repair the pipe and agricultural land. The Haulage company were delighted that a potentially devastating incident was avoided and that none of their neighbours were adversely affected. The Angling clubs and other stakeholders were also completely satisfied that their river was looked after in a respectful and conscientious manner.
