Thousands of litres of crude oil illegally dumped near Lloydminster’s wastewater treatment plant have been cleaned up.
The Saskatchewan government confirmed Wednesday a tank trailer recently dumped about 2,000 litres of heavy crude — or nearly 13 barrels of oil — into a ditch north of the city, on the Saskatchewan side of the Alberta-Saskatchewan boundary.
A City of Lloydminster employee came across the oil at about 12:30 p.m. Tuesday. The oil was running into a culvert near the city’s wastewater treatment plant.
The city initially referred to the incident as a spill, but provincial officials later stated the oil was deliberately dumped.
“It’s hard to speculate, you know, why someone would do that,” said Wes Kotyk, with Saskatchewan’s Ministry of Environment.
“In this day and age, everyone knows it’s not the right thing to do and it’s illegal to do that kind of thing.”
City crews and the Lloydminster Fire Department isolated the oil with sandbags before a vac truck and steamer began cleaning up.
About 95 per cent of the oil was recovered Tuesday, with the remaining picked up Wednesday.
The Ministry of Environment says the environmental impact was minimal because the oil flowed into the concrete culvert. The wastewater treatment plant was unaffected and no public water advisories were issued.
The ministry is investigating alongside the Saskatchewan Water Security Agency and Lloydminster RCMP. If charges are laid and a suspect is found guilty, they could face fines up to $1 million for each day of oil cleanup.
--- based on a report by Julie Clark
