Sea Empress: Onshore response
More
than 500 people and 2,000 metres of boom in addition to a lot
of ancillary equipment were used on over thirty clean-up sites.
Protective booms were deployed in the rivers and the marsh areas
that opened out onto the Bay and also at the entrance to ports
and harbours (360 metres of boom upstream of Pembroke harbour,
300 metres of boom at Milford Haven harbour, 120 metres of boom
at Neyland harbour and 740 metres of boom to protect the marshes
and the mudflats in Milford Haven Bay).
Beach
clean-up operations were focused on the immediate vicinity of
Milford Haven and particularly in West Angle Bay, Angle Bay and
Blucks Pool. Conventional coastal clean-up resources were used
and collection was conducted with squeegees, shovels, bags and
drums and vacuum tanks. In areas where mechanical collection was
impracticable, recovery and collection were done by hand and recovered
materials were stored on the spot in bags.
Beached oil in Freshwater West Bay (Source: Cedre).
Most collection sites were able to use OSRL resources (Desmi 250 recovery pumps, Vaculite recovery systems, Komara skimmers) and national resources such as vacuum tanks, liquid manure trucks, HP sprayers for water flushing.
About
14,000 cu.m. of liquid emulsion and 3,000 cu.m. of oiled waste
(including seaweed) were in fact recovered and contained 3,000
to 4,000 tonnes of oil. Liquid waste was shipped to the Texaco
refinery in Pembroke for settling and the solid waste was taken
to the Texaco refinery for treatment prior to being used for landfarming
and some of the waste was shipped to refuse dumps to be mixed
with household waste for the purposes of codisposal.
Response
operation underway in Tenby Harbour (Source: Cedre).
Storage depot (Source: Cedre).
Grey seal in the thick of it (Source: Cedre).Last update: July 2003