Oil_spill

Jeff Green | Sep 14, 2006

Back toHome

Oil spill at abandoned house inHarrowsmith

byJeffGreen

OPP and Ministry of the Environment (MoE) officials spent Tuesday Sept. 12 in Harrowsmith investigating an oil spill emanating from an abandoned house that is located on Wilton Creek. Scot’s Environmental Services was on hand as well, with two environmental spill response trucks.

At about 5 o’clock, very shortly after the News arrived, two OPP officers left the scene without comment, and the five or six Scot’s employees drove off as well. Before leaving, one Scot’s employee said “we skimmed the creek bed and removed the oil from the house. There’s nothing more to do today.”

One person was left at the house, who said he had been sworn to secrecy by the OPP. He left the scene by 5:30 pm.

Christine Brown, a senior official with the MoE in Kingston, visited with residents living downstream from the spill on Wilton Creek, and confirmed to them that a spill had occurred and there is some stove oil on the creek bed, which is almost dry as of this writing; but with rain called for in the next two days, people living downstream from the spill fear contaminated waters will flow down the creek.

Brenda Crawford is one of those residents, and she is concerned about potential impacts to her property.

“Christine Brown told me there was an oil spill from that house, and they put what they call a sock, in the creek bed just past my house, to soak up any oil that might flow downstream with the rain. I’m very concerned about this. It comes from having absentee landlords in the village, and it has to stop,” Crawford said.

There had been someone living in the house until June, when they were apparently evicted, according to Crawford. The owner of the house lives in Kanata .

The News made telephone enquiries to both the MoE and the OPP on Tuesday evening, but did not receive a response before the publication deadline for this week’s paper.