Oil Leak 279 Understanding the nature of the risk

In short, we don’t, according to the Deepwater Horizon report: “Scientific understanding of environmental conditions in sensitive environments in deep Gulf waters, along the region’s coastal habitats, …… is inadequate. The same is true of the human and natural impacts of oil spills.” The same is the case for the coastal waters of the Moray […]

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Oil Leak 278 Spill Risk

Another from Deepwater Horizon: “The technology, laws and regulations, and practices for containing, responding to, and cleaning up spills lag behind the real risks …….. Government must close the existing gap and industry must support rather than resist that effort.” Worry isn’t it? Even with the CFPA application to undertake STS, the practices relating to […]

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Oil Leak 276 Spirtle makes a recovery

You might have noticed this on the BBC News: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-41147390 A Moray Firth dolphin known as “Spirtle” was rescued last year after suffering severe sunburn following stranding in the Cromarty Firth. Rescuers feared she would not survey but ongoing monitoring has shown she has beaten the odds and is doing well. Lets hope that she and […]

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Oil Leak 275 Self Policing

More from Deepwater Horizon: “Because regulatory oversight alone will not be sufficient to ensure adequate safety, the oil and gas industry will need to take its own, unilateral steps to increase dramatically safety throughout the industry, including self-policing mechanisms that supplement governmental enforcement.” It would seem that this message hasn’t filtered through to the CFPA […]

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Oil Leak 274 Lessons learned?

Another quote from the Deepwater Horizon report: “To assure human safety and environmental protection, regulatory oversight of leasing, energy exploration, and production require reforms even beyond those significant reforms already initiated since the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Fundamental reform will be needed in both the structure of those in charge of regulatory oversight and their internal […]

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Oil Leak 273 Risk management

We’ve been having a look at the official report into Deepwater Horizon made to President Obama – granted, while a well blowout and STS are two very different things, lessons can still be learned. “The immediate causes of the Macondo well blowout can be traced to a series of identifiable mistakes ……that reveal such systematic failures […]

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Oil Leak 272 Retirement

Some of you may have noticed that David Ross, long time Highland correspondent for the Herald has retired: http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/15498141.Praise_for_Herald__39_s_Highland_correspondent_as_he_retires_after_nearly_30_years/ He was first to break the story of the plans for STS in the Moray Firth and has written countless articles throughout the subsequent period. We would like to add to the politicians sentiment and thank […]

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Oil Leak 271 No new emergency tug

So, that’s it, the MCA has deemed that we only need one emergency tug in Scottish Water – hope there’s no stricken tankers in the Moray Firth while it off patrolling in the Western Isles. Yet another reason not to undertaken STS at sea: https://stv.tv/news/highlands-islands/1366065-hopes-for-second-emergency-tug-dashed-in-wake-of-rig-crash/  

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Oil Leak 270 Desmog UK article

Interesting article on the STS debacle published earlier this month in case you missed it: https://www.desmog.uk/2017/08/03/pending-proposal-transfer-oil-between-ships-sea-raises-questions-over-wildlife-government-transparency  

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