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Should Washaways Be A Thing Of The Past?
It was with interest this morning that I observed a CFA brigade attend a wash away in a supermarket car park.
What was of particular interest was observing them use absorbant material, sweep it around and then proceed to wash it away- down a storm water drain.
With increased focus on businesses to clean up their game in terms of how they handle product spills and disposal of contaminated material, should FD's do away with the wash away?
Most absorbant material can now be swept and removed from the roadway for collection/disposal. Washing it down the drain simply moves the problem from one area (car park in this instance) to another area, potentially increasing the pollution as oppossed to fixing a problem.
On a side note, what PPE requirements does your department have in palce for this call?
What about scene control issues?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by lutan1 on
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A look on our EPA's website specifies the following is a reportable incident:
Call the EPA Pollution Watch Line when you notice:
•smoke or odours from an industry or business
•spills or slicks in waterways
•illegal dumping of wastes
•noise from a factory or industrial complex.
http://www.epa.vic.gov.au/reporting/polwatch.asp
Does this constitute a spill or slick in a waterway? What's the repurcussions for us as responders if we're the cause of it?
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Permalink Reply by Tony P on
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We will spread the absorbant, but not wash it away. The full cleanup is the local councils problem - we request their attendance. I think their District HQ needs to be aware that this sort of thing might be happening, and then they can send the word out to 'stop it now'.
'Washaway' is really the wrong term to use these days. Except when we've been called to wash away any red stuff... Though a hazmat call became a washaway one time locally, it turned out it was milk product, and the EPA asked for us to hose it down the drain!
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Permalink Reply by John on
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If its washing anything other than animal remains off the road, yes it should not be done. Fluids down from vehicles should use absorbent and swept up to be disposed of properly.
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Permalink Reply by Paul Montpetit on
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well it depends on what you are washing away.....LEO's have called us (on more than one occasion) to wash the highways down after farm equipment has left a muddy,shitty(literally) mess down the roadway...it was so slick people went off the road....it would also depend on what resources are available...many rural areas only have the Fire Department to handle calls like this.....
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Permalink Reply by Matt Schabacker on
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I'm not sure about my own department but there is a large city department just north of us that can flust anything under i think 35 gals (?) of fuel or gas down the storm drains, they just have to call the city sewer and let them know how much of what and where.
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flust anything under i think 35 gals (?) of fuel or gas down the storm drains, they just have to call the city sewer and let them know how much of what and where.
If I've done my conversion correctly, that's about 135 litres here- that's a huge amount of product!
The reality is, you'll probably never get all of that out of the system. I'm surprised they're allowed to do it...
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We were rather surprised about the information given... Considering that in Hazmat Awareness we're told to regard milk as 'hazmat' when anywhere near drainage or waterways. Wasn't in my area, we were support, I think the guys said it was bulk yogurt.
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Permalink Reply by Andrew Salinger on
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i have done a few washaways recently and more often than not we just wash the roadway so that it wont be slippery from the oil or other contaminents. We only use absorbant material (kitty litter) when it is large ammounts over a big area and then we just leave it there for it to be taken away by the rain. We have an EPA officer in our brigade and unless its large ammounts of something they genreally dont mind as long as it is washed down with large ammounts of water.
In relation to the washaway shown above i dont think that there would be very much oil or whatever it is washed down the drain in comparison to the amount of water. While it is disappointing to see anything of that sort going down the drain i doubt EPA would do much about it.
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I beleive it's being followed up with Burwood to remind brigades of what's acceptable practice and when they can and can't hose down.
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Permalink Reply by Troos Jacobs on
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What type of pollution or spillage was this ? Hope not petroleum !!!
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