On Saturday 27 October 2018, an incident on the Moselle river saw hundreds of litres of diesel flowing into the river.
The incident affected the river stretch between Mertert and Grevenmacher and was noticed shortly after 11:15. It happened when a tanker was being emptied at the Mertert port: after switching off the large pumps, a smaller pump was used as intended to completely empty the tank. A setting was later found to be incorrect, which resulted in pumped fuel being discharged through a valve on the ship deck even before the person in charge of the tank farm could press the emergency stop.
Since the tanker was in an inclined position at that time, the safety wall of the deck could not retain a large amount of the overflowed diesel oil and several hundred litres (estimated 400 litres) poured into the Moselle.
Fire brigades units from Manternach, Mertert, Grevenmacher, Lintgen, as well as the Service Dépolution from Esch-Sauer tried - with oil barriers and absorbent mats - to contain as much fuel as possible; however, the oil film spread in a short space of time, and the fire departments of Wellen and Konz erected further barriers across the water surface.
Shipping on the Moselle had to be stopped because of these oil barriers. The exact extent of pollution is currently unclear.
