filed for Sunday Herald, 15 January 2006
Controversial plans to pump millions of tonnes of Russian crude oil between ships in the Firth of Forth have been savaged by the government's environmental advisers as "erroneous and misleading".
Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) has accused the oil industry of downplaying the potential risk of a spillage. The impact of even a small leak at the wrong time could be "devastating" for wildlife, it warned.
Melbourne Marine Services, a company based in Sunderland, is seeking permission for transfers of up to eight million tonnes of Russian crude every year. It wants to establish an anchorage four miles off the Fife coast where small tankers from terminals in the Baltic and Barents seas can pump oil to giant tankers to deliver to America and the Far East.
But the Sunday Herald has learnt that SNH wrote to the company late last month, condemning its latest environmental assessment. Analysis of the potential impacts of spills was described as "scant", "overly optimistic" and founded on "unsubstantiated assumptions".
SNH dismissed the company's suggestion that a spill of up to 700 tonnes would only produced "hundreds" of seabird casualties. "A 700 tonne spill anywhere near one of the islands such as the Bass Rock or the Isle of May during the summer could result in tens of thousands of birds being oiled," SNH said.
SNH is urging the Maritime and Coastguard Agency and the Department of Transport not to approve the oil spill contingency plan which would allow the ship-to-ship oil transfers to go ahead.
The Green MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Mark Ruskell, is calling on the Scottish environment minister, Rhona Brankin, to block the transfers. "SNH have provided a damning analysis of this proposal," he said.
"The minister must now fully exercise her responsibility for Scotland's environment and use SNH's work to sink this proposal for good."
The Scottish Executive pointed out that the Maritime and Coastguard Agency was intending to launch a consultation on the nature conservation impacts on the plan. "We will take advice from SNH in responding to that consultation but decisions rest with the Department for Transport," said an Executive spokesman.
The proposed oil transfers are backed by the Forth Ports harbour authority, which responded to SNH's concerns on behalf of Melbourne Marine Services. "We answered all questions raised," said the authority's spokesman.
