London – Monday collision between a cargo and an oil tanker In the North Sea “has a high risk of being an environmental disaster in really important protected areas,” said News Naomi Tilley, oil and gas campaign chief at Oceana Uk, an environmental group focused on the oceans on Tuesday.
The British Coast Guard said that an exclusion zone of about half of a mile had been established around the two ships, which were no longer glued together.
“At this stage, it is too early to assess the extent of any environmental damage,” said Greenpeace UK in a statement early Tuesday, explaining that the severity of any impact would depend on a certain number of factors, including “the quantity and type of oil transported by the oil tanker, the fuel transported by the two ships, and the quantity of this, in the water”.
The British Coasts have declared that his counter-pollution and rescue team “evaluated the situation” and “develop a ready plan for implementation as soon as the situation allows”.
Dan Kitwood / Getty
The air quality in the region was normal, and there was a “very low” public health risk on the neighboring coasts, according to the UK Health Security Agency.
“It is really difficult to know at this stage what is in the water and how it will behave, but almost in all circumstances, it is bad news,” Tilley told CBS News.
Oil collisions near protected sea areas
The North Sea is home to a number of protected marine animals, as well as vital fishing stocks for the United Kingdom and other European countries.
Oceana UK believes that the collision took place nearly two protected areas in particular, in particular the marine protected area of the North Sea, which is appointed to protect the Port Porpoise, said Tilley.
“It is a really important field of reproduction and a very large part of the world’s population is in this area,” she said.
The Port Porpoise is a “species that must rise to the surface to breathe, so it cannot easily avoid sliding,” Tilley told CBS News.
Yann Schreiber and Paz Pizarro / AFP via Getty Images
The Holderness Offshore Marine protected area, on the other hand, is designated for the safety of seabed habitats.
“There are ocean Quahogs, which have lived for centuries. It is a kind of clams that have really long. And the starfish and the underwater sponges and things … They are both really important parts of the sea and they are very close, otherwise where this incident happened,” said Tilley.
Possible contaminants
The two ships involved in the collision would have had their own fuel for propulsion, and the American oil tanker which was struck, the MV Stena Immaculate, also transported the jet fuel, according to Crowley, the American logistics group which operates the ship.
Jet Fuel is toxic to marine life, and Crowley said that some of them had been released in the accident.
“The Immaculate Stena supported a broken loading tank containing Jet-A1 fuel due to the collision,” Crowley said in a statement to the Reuters news agency. “A fire occurred accordingly.”
He did not yet know on Tuesday how many fuel at jet had been released and how much would have already burned in the fire.
Danny Lawson / PA / Getty images
The first reports indicated that the containers carrying sodium cyanide were aboard the other ship, a Portuguese flag cargo called MV Solong. Sodium cyanide is a toxic substance that evaporates quickly and could have created dangerous air conditions on the surface of the water for cleaning teams and animals.
The shipping company that operates the ship, however, Ernst Rust, said on Tuesday that there were no containers containing sodium cyanide on the solong, but that there were four who previously contained the chemical and that they were watched.
Potential risks for the fishing industry – and consumers
Tilley said that collision pollution may have an impact on fish stocks in the North Sea and those who count on them.
“The Northern Sea is an extremely important area for fishing fleets in the United Kingdom, but also European fishing fleets,” said Tilley.
The extent of any environmental contamination is still unknown, she said, but that “could have long-term impacts for the community, as if chemicals are found in water. If this has an impact on fish stocks and the fish population that we eat, then it could have an impact on the fishing industry.”
Tilley noted that the large spilles of previous oil had “led to a fairly huge area where fishing was not allowed because of the contaminated fish for quite a long time”.
Ian Lee
