This week I met with the team undertaking the clean up work on the village pond in Hedgerley, after the fuel oil spill last week. I was pleased to see the speed and thoroughness of what had been put in place.
The Environment Agency has oversight of the project and the group undertaking the work have agreed to regular, detailed updates to keep everyone in the loop.
A really important safeguard we have is that water samples are being taken from the site of the spill through to the sump pond for independent testing.
Only when these are independently verified as clean will the process be completed. This will likely take weeks if not months. This is the latest update I have received following the meeting and inspection:
"Just to give you an update on where we are at currently, after our meeting today I collected a number of water samples from the pond, stream and sump to be sent off for independent laboratory analysis, this will give us a clearer picture on where we are at with contamination levels.
Visual and olfactory conditions in the water course have improved greatly with minimal iridescent visible on the pond, there is still the occasional smell of oil but as we discussed earlier this may be due to the oil retained within the deployed absorbents.
I will be returning to the village tomorrow alongside contractors to remove the absorbents and install a series of activated carbon filters within the water course to remove any residual iridescent from the water course.
We will then visit on a weekly basis to examine and sample the water course until the point at which we have received a series of clean samples from the laboratory analysis."
