Edinburgh Sucks! | A FORTH coming nightmare

City Council

A FORTH coming nightmare

By The Basa ⋅ February 11, 2007 ⋅

A spokesman for Forth Ports said: “The commitment of Forth Ports to safety is such that we hold annual exercises - not every three years as required. By holding regular exercises, we ensure high standards of safety.”

Well that’s not exactly how it turned out when they had their last exercise code-named Black Wednesday on October 4th last year. In a leaked report it turns out it was a complete fiasco:

Communications were “somewhat difficult”, it concluded. Information on when pollution would reach the shore was “contradictory”, predictions of how the oil slick would spread were “unreadable” and map references were wrong. There was “confusion” over which detergents could be used to disperse the oil.

Some agencies reported that 100 tonnes of oil had been spilt, while others said 150 tonnes. Communications in the emergency co-ordinating centre were said to be “poor” because reception for mobile phones was unreliable and there was no wireless internet.

Doesn’t exactly inspire confidence does it. But of course, we haven’t had the spin yet:

Forth Ports, the private company which acts as the harbour authority, was concerned about the messages being inadvertently conveyed by speakers at a press conference. It suggested “having a table cloth on the front of the tables on the podium to cover the body language visible below the table”.

Just about a week after what seems like a farce, our council leader Ewan Aitken went on Radio Forth and was asked questions about the ship to ship oil transferring in the Forth. Unfortunately (according to his blog), he forgot that the council had taken a view on it.

Aitken says “I and my colleagues have now taken the view that we should be working with the other councils to see if we can build a legal case against Forth Ports“. I think now that this report has been leaked and shows the farce that is happening with Forth Ports, he should make sure that silly little diary commitments get in his way and get that one to the top of his in-tray.

More Info: Forth oil spill response would be ‘flawed and confused’