US Ecology : Crude Oil Spill in the Middle East

April 12, 2022

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NRC, a US Ecology company, was called upon to respond to a crude oil spill in the Middle East. We quickly mobilized a team of highly trained responders, response trucks and other equipment from our nearby locations. Time was of the essence, as a significant amount of oil had already leached into the channel at two different zones by the culverts.

After carefully assessing the situation, we recommended dividing the project into three phases, emergency response, followed by remediation and disposal, and due to the severity of the spill, a third phase of ongoing sampling and monitoring was deemed necessary.

The channel was fully contaminated and our professional team members worked on limiting the spill and environmental impact by blocking the culverts to restrict oil from traveling any further. We contained the crude oil in the different areas of contamination and removed it by surface stripping the channel with excavators and vacuum trucks, followed by transportation of oil and oily water to the nearest pump station.

Quickly, our team utilized skimmers, portable storage tanks and vacuum trucks to suck free oil from the ground and transfer it to storage tanks. Debris that was missed by the skimmers and vacuum trucks was collected by hand. The tanks and all other equipment were then cleaned with high-pressure sprayers and wastewater was collected and safely disposed of. Our fast response mitigated the spill and prevented further environmental damage.

The next phase of the recovery was to remediate over 400,000 tons of contaminated soil. The NRC teams worked very hard to limit the customer's operational impact, by working with a professional subcontractor network and developing site remediation plans that were approved by our customer and the Environmental Ministry. Our highly trained team of certified technicians took samples and analyzed soil in many locations around the premises.

We then created different zones throughout the compound for a camp area, waste accumulation and hot-warm-cold zones, as well as equipment storage and staging areas. After excavation and removal of the contaminated soil, we coordinated the transportation and disposal of all materials through a local disposal facility and organized temporary and permanent contaminated waste, decontamination and storage areas.

As a precaution, the teams created trenches and underflow dams with pit liners, sandbags and bentonite in the channel. To avoid problems in the future, we established new requirements including protecting village roads that run near the channel from collapsing by installing gabion baskets for erosion control. We then trained staff on safe operations. The final step of the remediation phase consisted of researching the appropriate soil type for backfilling of all excavated areas and storing the clean soil until the Environmental Ministry provides a clean bill for the site.

The third phase of ongoing sampling and monitoring will begin after the clean soil is put in place. US Ecology will continue to work with the customer to ensure environmental health of the site for years to come.