Diesel Leak at Nature Reserve – Update

Be please aware that there has been a diesel leak from a tank in Midsomer Norton Train Station. Sadly this has contaminated the pond and stream. The station are aware and have informed the Environment Agency. We hope that they will be able to resolve this soon, but it the meantime please do not let dogs go in the water.

From the SDJR:
The incident occurred during the morning of Friday 4th March.  It was caused when a suspension component on one of our diesel engines suffered a mechanical failure which then squashed/fractured the outlet pipe from the diesel tank on the locomotive.

In the time that it took to close a valve to stop the leak approximately 30 gallons of fuel leaked onto the trackbed over a section of our track.

Oil spill measures (absorbent sausages and mats) were deployed in our drain sump on site and the incident was reported to the Environment Agency at 12:35 hrs on Saturday 5th March.  The Nature Reserve was visited on Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Thursday to check what the situation was.  Where possible agglomerations of diesel fuel were scooped off  the surface of the pond and the outlet stream from the pond.

On Tuesday an officer from BANES visited site and advised that spill measures should be deployed in the streams that come out of the bank above the Nature Reserve from our site.  This was duly undertaken under the supervision of the BANES officer.

Across the course of the days listed above we have checked and refreshed the spill materials on our site and within the Nature Reserve where required.  We will continue to check and refresh them going forward until there is clear evidence that leakage has ceased.