Operators shutdown a sewage plant in Castlegar, a town in British Columbia, Canada, after illegally dumped waste engine oil contaminated the sewage treatment pits. The incident illustrates the potential hazards of used lubricants, even to facilities designed to process waste.
According to the Oil Care Campaign, a used oil best-practice organization from the U.K., a single liter of engine lubricant can contaminate a million liters of drinking water. It can seep into the water table and aquifers, as well as harm plants an animals.
The waste oil killed off the microorganisms that are essential to the treatment process, subjecting nearby residents to a more severe olfactory assault than they are accustomed to.
As the vital oxygen level in the pits dropped, automatic air blowers activated. This created excess sewage froth, which spilled over the edges of the pits and into the rest of the plant. Workers quickly remediated the mess but the pits could take more than a week to recover.
“We are operating the plant the way it is meant to be operated and following procedures that are industry standard, so it is a difficult problem to solve,” operations manager Samuel Shine told local media.