Effort was then directed to the more challenging beaches, where there were problems with access and with the nature of the beach material.
We were very conscious of the need to keep the locals and tourists as informed as possible of the success of the cleanup operations, and we provided the local Tourist Information Centres with regular Beach Reports. We were very successful in achieving a cleanup of the main amenity beaches by the Easter Weekend, and the number of visitors over that period was high, although what proportion of visitors came out of curiosity is not known. However, the general reaction at that time to the cleanup was very complimentary.
We also made a point of continually amending the signage on beaches as conditions improved, again to provide as positive an approach as possible to the cleanup, but at the same time ensuring that the Public were aware of any potential problems.
The transition from the Emergency Phase to the Project Phase, as has already been described, coincided with Pembrokeshire County Council officers taking over responsibility for the management of the JRC. The Media, Support and Marine Groups had been disbanded, and we began to concentrate our attention on the problem of secondary cleaning. The Technical / Environmental Teams spent much time deliberating over the strategy to follow on individual beaches and areas of beaches. Also, written method statements, and where possible, detailed costings were prepared for ITOPF, the Insurance Fund Technical Assessors, who were beginning to take a very keen interest in the reasonableness of our proposals.
After Easter (Week 7), it was also recognised that manpower levels needed to be increased to tackle the numerous projects identified, in preparation for the main holiday season.
Many non-amenity beaches and coves on the open coast have been left to self-clean naturally, although in some cases the bulk oil was removed where there was a real threat of recontamination of adjacent beaches. Areas on some beaches were also left untreated as an experiment, to determine the natural weathering and degradation of the stranded oil in comparison with treated areas.
The majority of the cleanup involved the removal of the water-in-oil crude emulsion. However, about 360 t of heavy fuel oil was also spilled, and this has far greater capacity to contaminate beaches, and so had a large impact on the cleanup. Heavy fuel oil is a refined oil product consisting of the heavy fractions only. It is more viscous than crude oil, and neither disperses nor forms an emulsion readily; is persistent in the environment, and is much more resistant to natural degradation and active cleanup than Forties crude oil. As the temperatures increased, the heavy fuel oil often formed thin hard inert layers (‘pavements’) of asphalt, concealing pools of mobile oil.
A major problem encountered on many beaches was the extreme mobility of the beach sediments which resulted in oil being covered and uncovered. Sometimes, more than 2 m of sand would be deposited or removed during one tide. This meant that beaches had to be revisited for cleaning on a number of occasions, and many will probably require future visits. Control marks have been established on most beaches to enable the movement of sand to be accurately monitored.
The method of secondary cleaning depended mainly on the type of beach substrate and usually followed standard techniques, but in a number of cases, special or newly developed or experimental techniques were used.
Rocky Shore
If possible, rocky areas of coastline were left for the oil to degrade naturally as marine communities can be damaged with any type of cleaning such as dispersants or high pressure water washing. There were frequent access problems to many beaches. Where oily sand had adhered to a rocky surface, it was removed manually by brushing, scrubbing and wiping with rags. High pressure washing was also used and occasionally absorbent material such as pompoms. Although dispersants can harm marine life in the inter-tidal zone, it was agreed with the Environment Team of the JRC that amenity issues should have priority on the important recreational beaches, and dispersants were used to remove weathered oil adhering to rock surfaces.
Boulders
Boulders beaches were cleaned using the same techniques as for rocky shores together with flushing with high volumes of water to release oil trapped between boulders.
