Over 70% of serious oil spills unrecorded
August 1st 2005

The Environmental Industries Commission has called for urgent action to tackle inland oil spills, one of the biggest causes of pollution incidents in the UK, in the light of a new official report which shows that over 70% of the most serious incidents are never reported to the Environment Agency.

The Environment Agency has been working under the assumption that there were over 4700 inland oil spills in 2003 – 15% of all pollution incidents.

However the new report shows that the real picture is much worse as the ‘National Incident Recording System’ captures just 23% of serious inland oil spills.

Split and overfilled oil storage tanks are identified as the leading causes of oil spills The report, “An Analysis of Inland Oil and Fuel Incidents in England and Wales”was commissioned by the Oil Care Campaign, whose Members include Defra, the Environment Agency, SEPA and Shell UK Ltd. In draft form the report set out some hard hitting recommendations. However in the final report these have been downgraded to “discussion points”. These include: • Implementing a certification scheme for all oil tanks.

• Amending Building Regulations to require oil tanks to be failsafe.

• Extending the Oil Storage Regulations to houses as well as businesses Merlin Hyman, director of EIC, stated “Inland oil spills are the biggest cause of pollution incidents in the UK and cost many millions of pounds every year in damage to the environment – and this new report shows the real story is far worse than we thought. It is vital the Government acts to put in place a statutory ‘MOT’ system for oil storage tanks.” Over 70% of serious oil spills unrecorded “It is disappointing that the Oil Care Campaign has seen fit to weaken this report by changing the recommendations to ‘discussion points’. Oil spills cause massive damage to the environment and we will never tackle them if serious recommendations are swept under the carpet.” New Oil Storage Regulations currently being phased in, aim to “reduce the number of oil-related water pollution incidents by the year 2005 by about half compared to 1999 levels”.

However the new report shows that official statistics greatly underestimate the number of pollution incidents. Even on official statistics incidents have so far fallen less than 10%, from about 5000 in 1999 to 4700 in 2003.

Last year an EIC report, ‘Oil Under the Carpet’, revealed Government has given the Environment Agency no money for a dedicated programme of inspections of the 800 000 oil storage tanks that come under the Oil Storage Regulations, undermining its effectiveness. The report, and subsequent high-level campaign, called on the Government to: • Require the Environment Agency to put in place a targeted inspection and enforcement strategy for the Oil Storage Regulations – and give them funding to carry it out.

• Expand the Regulations to cover the millions of domestic, agricultural, waste oil and underground storage tanks currently excluded.

• Put in place a statutory ‘MOT’ style inspection regime for oil storage tanks.

• Put the Environment Agency Pollution Prevention Guidelines on a statutory footing.

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