Kerosene drum is found dumped inWoodbrook Glen stream
A DRUM of kerosene was found dumped in a stream at Woodbrook Glen in Bray last Wednesday night.
Local man Brian Clifton was walking his dog in the area when he noticed the dumped fuel.
Mr Clifton said that he was impressed by the response of the Environmental Protection Agency and Dun Laoghaire Rathdown council who dealt with the spill swiftly after it was reported.
Experts were on-site on Thursday cleaning up the spill and preventing further contamination.
Mr Clifton said that he was walking in the area when he noticed a strong acrid smell.
He didn’t know what it was, but on closer inspection found that someone had dumped a 20-litre barrel in the water.
‘Maybe it was something that had been sitting in someone’s shed, but the smell was so strong you would have had to have the lid on,’ he said.
‘ The stream runs all the way through the valley to the sea,’ said Mr Clifton. He was concerned about the effect it might have on the water and wildlife in the area, with 680 metres between the dumping site and the sea.
He came home and looked for an emergency number, without success. He contacted Shankill Garda Station who provided him with an out-of-hours number for the EPA.
‘ They rang me at 10 p.m. that night and took the report,’ said Mr Clifton. ‘ The next morning at 11 a.m., someone rang from the EPA to go through the whole thing.’
Mr Clifton attended the site again at around midday on Thursday and officials from the council were already there dealing with the situation.
They told him that the measures taken would include using pads and rolls to absorb the kerosene, as well as taking samples from the water itself.
Mr Clifton said that the recycling services do take waste oil free of charge, so dumping it in water illegally is profoundly unnecessary.
He was very pleased to see that the oil spillage was dealt with before heavy rainfall of Thursday and Friday, which would have dispersed the substance and polluted the area.
‘ The EPA have an app which can be used to support incidents like this,’ said Mr Clifton. Using the ‘See it Say it’ application, people can use their phones to send photographs, videos and GPS coordinates in a report of pollution, dumping, noise, burning and other matters.