A “floating megabomb” cargo ship with links to Russia unnecessarily dumped 300 tons of toxic fertiliser into the North Sea in an act of government-sanctioned “environmental terrorism”, an MP has claimed.
Rupert Lowe, a Reform MP, will tell Parliament that “errors” were made after the ship docked at Great Yarmouth with 300 tons of ammonium nitrate potentially contaminated with fuel.
A confidential Department of Transport (DfT) document, seen by The Telegraph, reveals how the authorities considered evacuating the town fearing a “catastrophic” explosion.
Well, if it’s got derv in it you might well not want it sitting around. That’s how the IRA used to make the bombs – ammonium nitrate and derv.
But toxic, in the sense of poisonous, if dumped in the icean?
Naah.
Probably the best place for it. Not wholly happy about the derv, obvs, but the rest of it will dissolve and disperse. And we’re not going to end up with an algal bloom, not in winter in the North Sea.
On Nov 16, the vessel sailed 10 miles off the Norfolk coast and dumped the 300 tons of potentially contaminated fertiliser at sea.
DfT “modelling” concluded the chemical would “disperse relatively quickly”, but was “toxic to marine life … affecting the gills and overall metabolism of fish” and capable of triggering an algae bloom that can “smother the seabed”, causing “death of marine life”.
Bettrer than “bang” tho’ right?
Hmm. Great Yarmouth. Bang or Bloom? It’s not an obvious decision.
I assumed a A “floating megabomb” cargo ship meant another load of exploding milk floats.
300 tons?
Fuck me.
That’s almost… *Does some quick maths*
1.725kg/m^3…
Carry the one…
174,000L
Exponential something something…
Erm. That’s a cube 5.58m
So in the grand scheme of the North Sea…
Fuck all.
Next problem.
Normally, though, Rupert Lowe is spot on when complaining about imported shit causing explosive situations which are then hushed up by the government.
For the typical environmentalist, ‘bang’ is actually better than dumping.
After all, ‘bang’ mostly kills humans, that plague on the planet.
We don’t hate them nearly enough.
Massive, unwarranted hysteria. Even if mixed in perfect proportions, an ANFO explosive is very, very safe to handle, requires a high-order detonator to set it off. Hell, in some states in the US, you buy it over-the-counter, and it is extensively/exclusively used in the mining industry precisely because it is so (relatively) safe to handle. Big Nothingburger, easily cleaned up on board or on shore.
llater,
llamas
Yeah Llama, but what if it was parked next to a branch of Detonators R Us and they had a delivery, with a pallette falling off of the truck and rolling down to the harbour and then there was that guy smoking outside the fireworks factory…
@ Ottokring, who wrote : . . .with a pallette falling off of the truck and rolling down to the harbour . .
Yeah, just at the moment when a box of batteries fell off the back of a lorry on its way to Batteries Plus, just in time to land on the pallet of detonators, the whole mess going over the quayside and through an.open hatch cover . .
I see what you mean. By all means, let’s err on the side of caution . . . .:-)
llater,
llamas
A rogue ship with 300t of explosive eh? Is that SS Richard Montgomery laughing at the back?
Thats so fuck all its not worth the article. Has someone missed a couple of 0’s off the description?
Otherwise the fertiliser will dissolve and disperse, the diesel is accidental, so probably not more than a couple of hundred gallons which in the grand scheme of bunker & ballast tank cleaning is also a spit in the ocean.
Looks to be a Maltese registered ship, built in Korea, with the usual Third World crew. But it’s “linked to Russia” which means it’s SCARY.
Apparently the “link to Russia” is that it was carrying Russian ammonium nitrate. Y’know, because Russia is an exporter of fertilisers.
Watch out for Putin, he might sneak into your garden and put Baby Bio on your roses. Or maybe Novichok. You never know.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_City_disaster
Required reading in my former gig. Much better to dump it in the ocean. Probably more coming out of any river off farmland.
You’re likely to see much more fertilizer “contamination” from any river going through ag country on its way to the sea.
Noel C: it’s about four or five times that!
On the environmental damage question: It appears the fertiliser was dumped in its plastic sacks. From experience with those – they get second used in the construction industry – that’s heavy duty plastic to withstand handling. So you’re not going to get a catastrophic nitrate release. It’s gradual over years if not decades as the plastic degrades. And something you can sling around half hundredweights of jagged broken brick & concrete around in isn’t going to degrade quickly. So the environmental effect could probably be labeled negligible/undetectable.
Actually thinking about it, the nitrates’s not much denser than water. So they’ll sink like a feather. And the bottom there’s all silt. So with current movements they’ll just get covered. You’re probably talking about centuries for it all to dissolve & dissipate.