An oil spill that entered Blenkinsop Creek has been contained and is not expected to affect the nearby Swan Lake Christmas Hill Nature Sanctuary.
“Work is ongoing, but they’ve isolated it, which is the main thing,” said Adriane Pollard, manager of environmental services for Saanich. “It came from one house, a leaking oil tank.”
Saanich was alerted to the leak on Wednesday morning. Rain carried the oil into a perimeter drain, which, in turn, entered the municipal storm drain and then the creek.
Public-works crews have excavated enough to stop the flow of oil at the property line and the tank has been emptied, Pollard said.
An estimated 300 litres of oil escaped from a tank on Taine Place in what is believed to have been a slow leak. Not all of the oil reached the creek.
A boom was put in the creek Wednesday to keep the spill from spreading.
