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Your support makes all the difference.It was reported yesterday that as part of the clean-up operation following the oil spill by the Sea Empress off Milford Haven, some of the affected beaches will not actually be cleared of oil.
What is happening is that the Countryside Council for Wales is conducting a comprehensive impact assessment and monitoring programme to measure the environmental damage of the oil. The research will require that some beaches are left uncleaned.
This may seem an odd thing to do. But the intention is to use these experimental plots to make comparisons with areas of coastline that are being cleaned. The main purpose of the research on these plots is to assess the impact of the oil and of the cleaning process on the full range of coastal and marine habitats and species.
In other words, we are trying to establish whether various cleaning methods, such as using JCB digging machines to remove material, or digging trenches to trap and suck away the emulsified mousses of oil, may be just as damaging as leaving the beach to be cleaned by the elements.
In order to gain maximum value from this study, we need to examine a range of coastal types, including rocky, bouldery, shingle and sandy foreshores, and everything from fully exposed beaches to very sheltered coves. As it happens, the west Wales coastline has a large number of remote coves, cliffs and beaches, so most of the areas we have chosen for the research are isolated and would, anyway, be extremely difficult to clean.
Similar experiments have been carried out during other oil spills, such as the Exxon Valdez incident. The results of the Exxon Valdez investigation, however, are largely irrelevant to the Sea Empress incident. In that accident, the beaches affected by oil were porous, which meant that the oil penetrated deeply into the sand. Also, it was much colder, so the oil evaporated very slowly. Neither of these conditions applies to the Pembrokeshire coast.
The type of oil that leaks is also significant. The "Forties Crude" that has leaked from the Sea Empress is a relatively light crude oil.
The research in west Wales will continue for a number of years and will form part of a series of experiments carried out over several decades.
No doubt oil-spill incidents will occur again. This long-term process of information-gathering will, hopefully, help the CCW and other organisations to advise government and the various responsible authorities, nationally and internationally, in responding to future incidents.
The writer is a warden with the Countryside Council for Wales.
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