Oil leaking into Lake Macquarie from Eraring power station

Catchin Jack · October 28, 2011

Due to a fire at the power station which is into day 2, theres now reports of approx 4000 litres that has leaked into the lake.

Will post more when I know more, if anyone else knows more info post it.

Catchin Jack · October 28, 2011

From the Newcastle Herald, here they say oil in the inlet but reports from some locals are saying it's in the lake itself, another cover up?

The inlet takes water into the power station and gets it from southern end of Dora Creek, the outlet is further north and empties into lake itself, I find it hard to believe that oil is only in the inlet, has it sucked it up from the lake after it leaked out of outlet?

Going to try take a drive up there and take a look.

OIL has been detected in an inlet canal at Eraring Power Station following a massive fire inside a generator early this morning.The fire inside the station's No. 2 generator sparked fears that oil could leak into Lake Macquarie.
When firefighters arrived at the scene about 2.30am the generator, which contained about 8000 litres of transformer oil, was fully alight.

More than 50 firefighters from the Rural Fire Service and NSW Fire Brigade attended the scene.

The fire is now out and crews are mopping up.

A thin sheen of oil was detected on the surface of one of the station's inlet canals this morning.

Firefighters and hazardous materials experts are using a boom to collect the oil and prevent it spreading.

Superintendent Paul Bailey from the NSW Fire Brigade said the oil was mostly contained but that the Environmental Protection Agency would be brought in to oversee the clean-up today.

"There will obviously be some clean-up and other issues for the power station in the coming weeks," Superintendent Bailey said.

It is unclear what sparked the blaze. Police and firefighters will conduct an investigation when conditions are safe later today.

PRED-ATOR · October 28, 2011

omg are you talking about munmorah/san remo?! thats one of my favourite bream and flattie locations : (

Catchin Jack · October 28, 2011

Na, Munmorah and San Remo go into Tuggerah Lakes.

I just got back from Eraring and headed to the water outlet, they've locked up all the gates into there but found a track that got me to the outlet where it meets the lake, below are photos from it, there's 2 booms, one in further and one at the mouth of the outlet, there was Fire and Rescue there and they were about to put another boom across to stop the oil.

You can definitely smell oil there and the smell was quite strong, it's the smell of burnt oil. So it's leaking out of there and they've said they've found it at the water inlet also which means it's floating around inside the lake and has travelled around to the inlet which is quite a distance. The wind was blowing directly into the outlet channel when I was there.

Let's hope they clean it all up properly and fishing and other wildlife isn't affected.

First photo is inner boom and the other is outer boom, I believe they're putting a third boom near the outer one, well looked that way from what I saw, they weren't real happy about me being there or taking photos but eh, i was on public land, not there's haha.