EDITOR'S VIEW: Public deserves full answers after Port of Tyne crane collapse and South Shields nurdle spill
Public should be given full disclosure on the Port of Tyne nurdle spill following crane collapse in South Shields, argues Gazette editor Richard Ord.
It’s time for the public to be given a full account of exactly how an environmental emergency unfolded along our coastline - we’re tired of surprises.
As millions of plastic pellets gushed into the Tyne two Sundays ago, information about what was happening arrived at a trickle.
Initial reports revealed that a crane had collapsed and a man had been injured at the Port of Tyne in South Shields. That was, in itself, a major incident.
Further information established that the crane collapsed during a collision involving vessels at the dock. I’m no maritime expert, but one ship hitting another in the Tyne is clearly a serious matter.
Those events alone raise important questions about when the relevant authorities and agencies were notified and what information was shared with them.
But worse was to follow. By Monday morning, vast numbers of plastic beads were washing up on beaches along our coastline. Understandably, members of the public linked the pollution to the incident at the Port. They were right.
Calamitous would be one of the more restrained ways to describe the whole episode.
Environmental campaigners suggested that a shipping container containing plastic pellets may have been damaged. They told us that containers of this kind can carry around 25 tonnes of pellets - potentially amounting to a billion nurdles.
Then, in a statement issued on Tuesday, July 28, nine days after the collision, the Port of Tyne revealed that three containers had been damaged. Two, it said, had been “split open” during the initial collision and had leaked pellets into the river.
But the statement does not tell us how much material those containers held, how much escaped into the Tyne or how much was subsequently recovered.
We are told that the two containers have now been “cleansed of plastic pellets” following the arrival of a specialist team at the weekend - but that’s several days after the collision. A third damaged container still contains what the Port describes as “some pellets” but is “not presently leaking”.
The authorities are undoubtedly working under immense pressure, and dealing with pollution of this kind is no simple task. But the public deserves timely and precise information about the scale of the spill, the environmental consequences and the clean-up operation.
We are receiving our information piecemeal. Can’t a full account of what happened from all the involved parties be released to give the public confidence that it is being fully informed?
We also need to know when each agency was alerted, what caused the collision, who will be held accountable once the investigations are complete and, ultimately, who will pay for the clean-up.
Clear the nurdles - and give us a clearer picture of what’s happening. And please, no more unpleasant surprises.