Poole harbour is one of the most strictly protected environmental areas in the UK and Europe, but as the frantic clean-up taking place on Monday showed, it is not immune to pollution from oil spills.
As a site of special scientific interest, a European special area of conservation and a marine protection zone, the harbour and its waters support an abundance of species, from rare and endangered birds to the seagrass meadows in its waters that are carbon sinks.
Dr Simon Boxall, of the school of ocean and earth science at the University of Southampton, said quick and decisive action was needed, with longer-term monitoring to measure the impact of the spill. At 200 barrels, it was a relatively small spill, but was leaking into the shallow coast close to environmentally sensitive areas. He said it had the potential to cause substantive damage before it dispersed and broke down.
“It will be important to collect as much of the oil as possible in the forthcoming hours and to boom off harbours and sensitive areas,” he said.
The oil spill occurred at a pipeline operated by the gas company Perenco, at Wytch Farm oilfield. It showed that even with onshore drilling, “where there’s drilling, there’s spilling,” said Ian Williams, professor of applied environmental science at the University of Southampton.
“Oil spills have a wide range of well-documented adverse impacts on land, oceans, coastlines, rivers, seabeds and more,” he said. “Oil has the potential to destroy habitats and disrupt the natural ecosystems that make up these environments. [Oil spills] are particularly damaging to areas that are sensitive or protected such as Poole harbour.”
Research by the University of Newcastle has revealed such oil spills are not isolated in the UK. Prof Richard Davies, pro-vice chancellor of the global and sustainability department, said the research found leakage from oil and gas well boreholes, and sometimes from the associated pipelines, had caused nine pollution incidents between 2000 and 2013, according to Environment Agency data.
Caroline Dennett, who resigned as a safety consultant for Shell, which is not involved in this oilfield, after accusing the oil company of causing “extreme harms” to the environment, said the spill was environmentally devastating.
“It’s more evidence that we need to just stop oil, say no to new drilling and extraction,” she said. “We need to transform the energy system, to end and recover from our 120-year addiction to fossil fuels.”
Dennett said spills happened in the Niger Delta day in day out, and “we turn a blind eye. When this happens here it really brings home the impact.”
The oil spill came a week after Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole council voted to request the Dorset Pension Fund to divest from fossil fuels. Dennett said the spill should feed an appetite to put a stop to the Wytch Farm production site. “They only serve the global market and its greedy shareholders,” she said.
