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SYDNEY – The environmental impact of a major gasoline spill at a Cape Breton petroleum distribution terminal could have been worse.

In addition to last week’s leakage of about 600,000 litres of gasoline from a punctured tank at Imperial Oil’s Sydney facility, a precautionary power outage resulted in the discharging of roughly 48,000 cubic metres of untreated wastewater from the adjacent Battery Point wastewater treatment plant.

Read more CBRM councillor all for community meeting on Imperial Oil storage facility concerns 'We have to do something:' Fuel recovered from Cape Breton facility's gas leak, but incident rattles residents

CBRM councillor all for community meeting on Imperial Oil storage facility concerns

'We have to do something:' Fuel recovered from Cape Breton facility's gas leak, but incident rattles residents

“It’s not ideal but it’s not as uncommon as we would like it to be,” said Cape Breton University assistant engineering professor Allison Mackie whose areas of specialty include drinking water and industrial wastewater treatment.

“In many locations, when there’s a big rain storm there might be untreated wastewater getting into a body of water. It does still happen. And, of course, we still have untreated wastewater going into Sydney harbour from the Westmount side although plans are in place to deal with that in the near future.

“But as for the discharge of untreated wastewater into the harbour, well, I wouldn’t be overly concerned about that unless you go swimming near that location. Fortunately, there are no beaches right around there. Because it went into the ocean there is much less impact than if it had gone into a small lake.”

Cape Breton Regional Municipality spokesperson Christina Lamey confirmed that the Battery Point treatment plant was unpowered for 47 hours. Following the spill, Imperial Oil instructed the municipality to shut off the treatment plant’s air-handling units to prevent gasoline fumes from entering the facility. Within a couple of hours, that order had been amended to shut down all power, including the backup generator, to the treatment plant.

During the two days without power, an estimated 48,000 cubic metres (48-million litres) of untreated wastewater was discharged into the harbour. Lamey said power was restored to the plant on Monday.

“There is nothing more that we can do about what happened on the weekend,” said Lamey.

“We do plan to continue to develop our wastewater treatment capacity to meet federal regulations. We’re investing in wastewater treatment and any time that system is not operating as it should is disappointing.”

Meanwhile, life is returning to normal in the nearby north end Sydney neighbourhood that was voluntarily evacuated on Friday after the spill, which was caused by a front-end loader that punctured a hole in a large storage tank, was reported.

Area residents returned to their homes later that day while crews continued to measure the air quality in the neighbourhood.

Imperial Oil told the Cape Breton Post on Tuesday that it’s still too early to say when the bulk fuel storage facility will reopen. Although motorists are permitted to drive past the facility on Ortona Drive, there are no tanker trucks utilizing the terminal. Company spokesperson Keri Scobie said the lost product has been recovered.

“The product released from the tank was recovered and transferred to a spare tank on site using a sump pump and hose system,” said Scobie.

“That process took about 14 hours and was completed Sunday morning. We are now working on a disposal plan.”

She also stated that one of the safety systems in place at all Imperial Oil facilities is containment berms that are made of impermeable clay and gravel which prevents product from seeping into the ground.

Scobie reiterated the company’s position that there are no safety or health concerns for the community.

A Nova Scotia Environment spokesperson has confirmed that the department is investigating the recovery and clean-up process.

“Imperial Oil has an in-house environment team leading the spill response and recovery, and is required to provide our Department with an incident report on what happened and action that was taken, including cleanup and testing,” explained Environment department spokesperson Tracy Barron.

“Staff from our Sydney regional Environment and Climate Change office are also being briefed by Imperial Oil officials on next steps for recovery, cleanup and testing. Imperial Oil has been responsible and is taking appropriate action to respond to the spill.”

Todd Mercer, general manager of Sydney-based Mercer Fuels, said while the accident was unfortunate, it hasn’t had much of an impact on his home heating fuel delivery service.

“We had some fuel left in our inventory, but fortunately it’s summer and not as many of our customers order fuel at this time of year,” said Mercer.

“We don’t know when the terminal will be open again but we can always head down the road to the Port Hawkesbury facility.”

In the meantime, the price of a litre of regular gasoline is going for a minimum of $1.85.4 in Cape Breton. Some service stations are still reporting shortages, but Imperial Oil has stated that has nothing to do with the spill at its Sydney facility.

- David Jala is a multimedia journalist with the Cape Breton Post. Follow him on Twitter @CBPost_David.

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