The Cromarty Firth Port Authority (CFPA) hasn’t won many plaudits recently for its level of engagement with local stakeholders.
A modest newspaper advert really doesn’t cut it in terms of transparency when you are proposing the transfer of nearly nine million tonnes of crude oil a year between tankers at sea not far from the shore.
Not one community council around the Cromarty or Moray firths was directly informed. Even the Highland Council, an official consultee, only heard about it on December 28. It was originally given just till the end of January to give its views.
Few locally see the need as ship to ship oil transfers (STS) between tankers tied up at the nearby Nigg Oil Terminal jetty have been carried out safely for years.
There is a suspicion that the authority’s row a year ago with Nigg’s owners the Global Energy Group, over their unsuccessful application to the Scottish Government to create a private harbour authority in the water off the Nigg yard, has had a direct bearing on the CFPA strategy
But the authority, whose trading name confusingly is the Port of Cromarty Firth, has applied to the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) for a licence to undertake the oil transfers at sea. Some see this underlining how ludicrous elements of the current devolution arrangements currently are.
It is the MCA, which comes under the UK Department for Transport, who will ultimately decide whether the CPFA should be granted a licence.
It will have to consider warnings of the catastrophic impact an oil spill would have on nearby designated environmental sites, bird sanctuaries and the world famous Moray Firth dolphins.
The Scottish Government is the guardian of the Scottish environment, on land and sea. Ministers take their duties seriously, not least when it comes to designating Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) to safeguard important marine habitats and species. Too seriously according to some fishermen, facing consequent curtailment of their activity.
Yet it is not Scottish ministers who will decide on the threat posed by transferring 180,000 tonnes of crude oil between vessels, four times a month, to the very same habitats and species.
To date the Scottish Government has not said whether it supports the CPFA, only that people should make their views clear in the consultation which ends on Monday.
However a spokesman did say
“While regulating this practice (STS) is reserved to the UK Government, the Scottish Government is responsible for environmental protection and we have made the very valid case for Scottish Ministers to have a clearly defined role in the consenting process for any programmes of ship-to-ship transfers in Scottish waters.”
To many this is a rather genteel an approach.
Plans for ship-to-ship oil transfers in the Firth of Forth were ruled out in 2008, when ministers were rather more outspoken.
Strange, as the environmental health of the Cromarty Firth would seem exactly the issue they could fight on now to achieve their “clearly defined role”, with a dolphin ready-made symbol.
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