UK AND IRELAND SPILL ASSOCIATION WORKING GROUPS REPORT

MARINE AND MANUFACTURERS WORKING GROUP

The Group held a busy meeting in May with 6 members present.

There was agreement to extend the Knowledge Base series through to September and the members agreed to add a number of webinars to the programme. The event plan is inside the back cover of this issue.

There has been much discussion on standards and the need to create British standards for commonly used spill response equipment. It was agreed to draft a standard for Skimmers to be followed by one for temporary storage tanks in spill response

The group also discuss Plastic Pollution and support to that Working Group. Vikoma and Elastec have offered equipment and support to the group and will see the outcome of the trials to fsee what they can do to support further.

The group is supportive of some marine focussed face to face events when safe to do so and these will be agreed the next meeting on 7 Sept 21. The Group was delighted that Interspill 2022 is confirmed as a face to face event at the RAI Exhibition Centre, Amsterdam from 21 – 23 June 2022.

For the pyromaniacs amongst you watch this video on Fire Booms which was a hit on our Marine Special Equipment webinar!

INSURANCE WORKING GROUP – 20 MAY

Sadly, only three members were able to make this meeting for lots of reasons so the next meeting is scheduled for 1 July 2021. However we have started the planning of an Insurance/Work Activity webinar on Managing risk in dynamic spill response incidents. This is planned for the Autumn

If anyone wants to work with me on developing this please get in touch.

PLASTIC POLLUTION WORKING GROUP

This working group has met regularly over the last 3 months as it has been focussed on designing a response service for plastic pollution and marine debris incident to be deployed on shorelines, rivers and canals.. This has involved listening to the probable clients; local councils or the Environment Agency.

The Group has looked at how to deliver the service, the equipment that is suitable for the different marine environments, trialling that, then working with the EA and a council to see how fits into their resilience plans.

There are a number of critical factors to service design:

When plastic or marine debris arrives on a shoreline it needs to be removed quickly before it is taken away on the next tide to be dispersed and delivered somewhere else that may not be as accessible.

The removal must be done sensitively with least damage to the environment in which it has landed. On sand, for example, there is a plethora of marine life in the top 5cm of sand on a beach. One marine scientist described the first 30 cm of the beach as its lungs and stomach. So whatever service we design must be respectful of the beach and do as little as possible to disturb it.

It must be portable as most incidents will be some distance from where a vehicle can access.

The service must recover as much of the debris as possible so this would include plastic nurdles, plastic flakes, non-natural materials.

All that is recovered must be segregated prior to waste disposal and to ensure the maximum recycling of material.

Having design a scope of work and generic risk assessments it was time to trial what we have and see what issues would arise.

With the agreement of New Forest District Council members companies met at Milford on Sea, with the permission of New Forest District Council to trial various collection devices and a trommel for sorting the collected material.

Exceptionally for May, the sun agreed to shine and we undertook a number of trials for collecting different sorts of debris whilst trying to prevent collection of sand and shingle. After trial and error this was successful.

Risk assessments were reviewed and changes made and we have agreed an event triage process.

A further equipment trial was held on 11 June in Stockbridge.

The next step is to undertake a field demonstration in Fleetwood on 23 June with the EA Incident Response staff and members of the local Council. Fleetwood has been afflicted by large quantities of debris arriving unexpectedly on their beach several times over the last year.

In all 6 different pieces of equipment will be demonstrated enabling a response on sand, shingle, rock, mud and on the tide line using an adapted skimmer.

Following this trial and feedback, approval for the processes for collection will be submitted to Natural England and the Marine Management Organisation for their approval. If modification is necessary these will be made and demonstrated.

Following this the service will then be available for shoreline accredited members to deliver following their investment in the equipment and training in the techniques and systems used.

Our thanks to Oracle, RSK-RAW, Elastec, Vikoma for assisting in this trial and investing in the equipment being used.