An oil spill occurred when a car collided with an oil tanker causing the oil tanker to overturn, spilling part of its load on to the road.

The spilt oil flowed along the natural gradient of the road until it found its way into a field drain. Via the field drain the oil ran under the road, down an embankment and subsequently entered a nearby watercourse. 

AES Marconi were requested to attend an emergency pollution incident at the above mentioned site. AES Marconi duly arrived within 1 hour of notification whereupon pollution containment procedures were performed.

On arrival at the site AES Marconi advised the Department of the Environment on the best course of action to follow in dealing with the spill.  AES Marconi placed oil absorbents along the length of the roadside verge. A series of recovery trenches were excavated in order to capture any migrating oil.

The line of the field drain was traced to the watercourse where, part of the riverbank was cleared, and a sump installed with accompanying absorbents. Across the river two boom systems were put in place in order to capture and absorb any mobile contamination already present in the watercourse.    

In order to prevent this on going pollution from entering the watercourse pollution levels were monitored for the next six weeks. This included the servicing of the containment systems that had been put in place.

All contaminated material was disposed of according to local regulations.