Brutal oil contamination on the Danube – pictures
Civilians, locals and environmental activists are putting money together to find out who has caused the most severe environmental pollution of the past 20 years at the Ráckevei-Duna, an important anabranch of the river Danube.
On the course of last weekend, someone spilt a significant amount of dead oil (according to experts around six cubic meters) in the duct collecting rainwater on the corner of two streets in Szigetszentmiklós – at least according to a Facebook post on Sunday that has been already shared by more than 15,000 people.
The author of the post offered half a million forints for finding the culprit, but since then the “blood-money” has reached the double of the original amount.
According to the post mentioned by roviden.hu, the massive amount of oil flowed onto the bed of the anabranch of the Danube. Where the water exits the duct, the reed is currently holding the contamination on the surface of around 3-4000 m2. Fortunately, the oil didn’t get into the watercourse itself; however, there are some areas around the piers in the reed where the used oil is built up to 20-25 cm thickness.
The National Directorate of Water told the MTI on Monday that professionals of the institution had successfully retained the contamination and were already working on cleaning it up. The police opened an investigation.
The communiqué pointed out that the institution had immediately ordered a 3rd-degree water quality damage control plan after learning about the contamination.
It wrote that on Saturday a local notified the authorities through a phone call about the incident, after which the experts in charge ordered a field inspection and
pointed out that a considerable amount of dark coloured, thick, carbo-hydrogen derivative was present all along the canal and the flora of the bank of the anabranch, in a size of around 2000 km2 in a thickness of 2-5 cm.
According to the announcement, starting from 1 PM, the experts began to take the necessary measures by identifying the carbon-hydrogen derivative, placing out a special material absorbing the oil and starting to pump it off of the water by a vacuum pump to avoid the contamination of the whole of the branch of the river. Their colleagues placed a 150 metre-long inflatable wall submerged in the water around the reed retaining the oil and other absorbent materials between the wall and the flora.
The contaminated water flora needs to be removed completely since its thickness makes it impossible to remove the absorbent material and to keep the vacuum pump working. The whole procedure will last 7-10 days.
The Water Directorate of the Middle-Danube made a denouncement, and the police have started an investigation against an unknown offender – stated the National Directorate of Water.
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Source: roviden.hu