Nalcor says roughly 45,000 litres of oil was released in an incident at Churchill Falls back in late October.
It’s not clear how much of the oil was consumed by a fire following a transformer failure in the Churchill Falls switchyard on October 29.
Nalcor says the transformer holds 111,400 litres of oil—however, 65,000 litres were recovered in tankers in the switchyard.
It was initially believed that the oil involved was Voltesso, a substance that takes a long time to break down in the environment.
It turns out that the oil involved was Luminol, which has a higher rate of biodegradability than Voltesso.
Absorbent materials, booms and vacuum trucks are being used for containment and collection and officials say there is no visible evidence of oil in the Churchill River.
