MSC Napoli: Cefas advises on environmental protection plans

Cefas has an emergency response team to deal with marine and chemical and oil spillages. The team have been very busy recently providing environmental protection advice following the beaching of the MCS Napoli in Lyme Bay.

The MSC Napoli, a 62,000 tonne container ship with over 2,300 containers on board, was beached in Lyme Bay, alongside a World Heritage coastline.  Cefas scientists have been  intimately involved in the response operation from the time the vessel was evacuated, providing on the scene advice.  One of our first jobs was to assess the 157 dangerous goods containers in terms of their hazard. With the aid of Maritime and Coastguard Agency we classified these containers into priority groups for recovery. We will also check water samples from the flooded hold for toxicity, to see whether any hazardous materials are leaking from the remaining containers on board the ship.

Cefas has also designed an environmental monitoring programme for the area, on behalf of Defra, to assess any impacts of oil and chemicals lost from the vessel.  The results from our analyses of crabs and scallops from the area have so far been encouraging, as concentrations of oil found are at normal background levels. The 3,500 tonnes of heavy fuel oil, which is the main threat to marine life, should all be removed soon.

The removal of containers is ongoing, and we will continue to monitor the local marine environment to check for any impacts arising from the grounding of the MSC Napoli.

For further information contact Robin Law: robin.law@cefas.co.uk