May 9, 2006

environmental experts comment on the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) report into the Buncefield oil depot explosion

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and Environment Agency released the results of their investigation into the causes and the environmental impact of the explosions at the Buncefield oil depot in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire.

Professor Ian Colbeck, Director, Centre for Environment and Society, University of Essex, said:

“This reports allays initial concerns that the smoke from Buncefield Oil Depot explosion would have a significant impact on air quality and health.

“Highest concentrations were observed in and around the depot but these were similar to levels that might be expected during bonfire night. However if it wasn’t for the weather the situation could have much worse.

“The saving grace was the weather and as a result the plume able to penetrate higher up into the atmosphere and near the ground. If this event occurred in the summer months then the corresponding ground level air pollution impacts would have been significant.”

Dr Alastair Lewis, Dept of Chemistry, University of York, said:

“The report demonstrates that the UK escaped any major air quality deterioration largely because the pollutants generated were transported in ‘favourable’ weather conditions – that isolated the smoke plume in a discrete layer well away from the population at the surface. Had the explosion occurred during a more typical blustery Westerly it may have been very different.

“It’s important to note however that although air quality was not adversely affected, persistent organic pollutants generated by the fire, PAHs and similar, will not simply have ‘disappeared’. Their fate will have been to be carried several days away from the fire source by the wind, to be ultimately deposited to soils and plants or into the ocean, so the event was certainly not without environmental impact.”