Residential heating oil has leaked into a marsh at Swan Lake just a week after a similar incident in the Gorge Waterway in Esquimalt.
The new spill is “significant,” the District of Saanich said in a statement. The Ministry of Environment estimated that 600 litres of oil leaked into the lake.
The spill has been traced to a leaking oil-furnace tank on a property in the 3800-block of Swan Lake Road.
A siphon dam has been installed at the property and containment booms have been placed in the marsh area, Saanich officials said.
“There is a substantial amount of product in the marsh area and some product in Swan Lake that will take time to clean up,” the district said. “The owner has been notified and will be working with their insurance to get resources to support in the clean-up efforts.”
Swan Lake Nature Sanctuary executive director Cara Gibson said there is no oil in the lake’s open water, but there is a strong smell of fuel in the spill area.
“We’re quite pleased with the response,” she said. “Everybody’s come out really quickly. Everything is proceeding as well as possible.”
The overall effect of the spill is still being assessed, Gibson said. “It’s really unfortunate but we also know this kind of thing happens.”
She said a close watch is being kept on the sanctuary’s western painted turtle population. “We’re one of the last homes to the turtles, so there’s not that many individuals left in the wild,” Gibson said. “We have a breeding population here on site and this could definitely impact it because it’s right in their habitat.”
She said she is “very hopeful” that the affected area will be returned to pre-spill condition, and would like to see the incident inspire more people to get involved as volunteers at Swan Lake with environmental-stewardship efforts.
“What would be really great out of this is if we could use it as a call to action.”
The Gorge spill of about 300 to 350 litres came from a leak in a home oil tank on Songhees Nation land just after it had been refilled.
About 10 per cent of neighbourhood fuel spills into water courses in Saanich come from residential tanks, the municipality said, and there are about five such spills each year.
