On Wednesday 7th February port stakeholders contacted Cattewater Harbour Commissioners (CHC) to report an unknown oily substance on top of the water in the River Plym.
CHC staff were swiftly deployed to investigate and immediately initiated our Tier 1 oil spill response in the area of Pomphlett Creek. These actions, supported by SERCO managed to contain and extract the unknown substance. The Environment Agency (EA), South West Water (SWW), Plymouth City Council and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency were informed.
South West Water’s oil spill responders Adler & Allan were later mobilised to provide ongoing Tier 2 response supported by CHC while investigations by SWW and EA into the source continue.
Captain Richard Allan, Chief Executive/Harbour Master at CHC said:
“We take pollution in the Cattewater very seriously; we train for such events and regularly invest in new equipment to improve our response. We are grateful to the stakeholders that gave us early reports, which allowed our staff, who are trained in oil spill response and incident management, to mobilise and deploy fast response containment booms, protecting the waters of the Plym, and Plymouth Sound.
“We remain in support of South West Water and Adler & Allan who are now leading on containment, clean up and land side investigations.”
