2005 Strategic Environmental Assessment SEA6 Technical Report - Contaminants. A review of the contaminant status of the Irish Sea
This report is a contribution to the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA6) conducted by the Department of Trade and Industry (now Department of Energy and Climate Change). This report considers the major sources of contamination to the Irish Sea from offshore energy installations and puts them in the context of other sources of contamination to the region. The report also considers contamination of the wider environment, making use of data provided by monitoring programmes and other specific studies. The oil and gas industry in the Irish Sea is small by comparison to that of the North Sea, but bears comparison to that of the Southern North Sea which is dominated by gas production and for which many of the platforms are in relatively shallow water. The discharge of production and drilling chemicals, residual oil and compounds derived from the formation water co-produced with the oil or gas contribute to the contamination concentration in sediments and water. However, in Liverpool Bay and Morecambe Bay, where the oil and gas fields are located, the riverine inputs of major groups of organic contaminants and metals are found to be several orders of magnitude greater than those from the offshore oil and gas industry. Inputs of artificial radionuclides into the Irish Sea are dominated by discharges from Sellafield on the Cumbrian coast. The distribution of radionuclides in seawater, in the sediment and in biota are reviewed.
dataset
http://www.bgs.ac.uk/data/sea/home.html
name: Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) data portal
description: The Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) data portal provides free access to available data and reports which have been produced through the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change SEA process. The site is run and managed by BGS on behalf of the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC). Many files can be downloaded directly from this website. Those that are too large to download can be ordered via the website for postal delivery from BGS.
function: download
BGS_SEA_84
British Geological Survey
eng
OGP
urn:ogc:def:crs:EPSG::4326
http://www.offshore-sea.org.uk/site/index.php
biota
environment
oceans
utilitiesCommunication
revision
2011-03-25
Geology
Production and industrial facilities
publication
2008-06-01
publication
2008-06-01
-6
-4
55.3
51.7
revision
2006-01-01
2005-01-01
2005-01-01
publication
2005-03-15
notPlanned
This report was prepared by scientists from CEFAS as part of the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change's Offshore Energy Strategic Environmental Assessment programme. Data specific to the oil and gas industry for the SEA6 area was gathered from Environmental Impact Assessments for oil and gas developments in the Irish Sea, pre and post development surveys of oil and gas production facilities in Liverpool Bay (2002), the Environmental Emissions Monitoring System Detailed Emissions Reports (EEMs, 1999-2003) and CEFAS/Dti Offshore Chemicals Notification Scheme data. Of particular importance is the data gathered as part of the United Kingdom National Marine Monitoring Programme (UK NMMP). Data for the NMMP is presented in a number of publications that include the CEFAS Aquatic Environment Monitoring Reports (AEMR) (1998, 1999-2000 and 2000- 2001), Quality Status report - Region III Celtic Seas (QSR 2000), UK NMMP second report (1999-2001) and the Charting progress: An Integrated Assessment of the State of the UK Seas report (2005). Publications of importance to radioactivity in the marine environment include the Radiation in Food and the Environment (RIFE) report, the MARINA II study (Betti et al., 2004) and the data published in the CEFAS AEMRs.
The SEAs data were produced as part of the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change's Offshore Energy Strategic Environmental Assessment programme; Crown Copyright, all rights reserved. The DECC SEA must be acknowledged in any maps or publications that make use of the data. All the data files are freely available to the public. The Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) data portal provides free access to available data and reports which have been produced through the SEA process. The site is run and managed by BGS on behalf of the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC). Many files can be downloaded directly from this website. Those that are too large to download can be ordered via the website for postal delivery from BGS. BGS (NERC) has been contracted by DECC to publish SEA datasets on its behalf. All intellectual property rights (including , without limitation, copyrights, database rights and all other rights which subsist or may at any time in the future subsist in the Dataset(s)) in the Dataset(s) ('Intellectual Property Rights') are owned by DECC (formerly the Department of Trade and Industry, and the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform). BGS has been authorised by DECC to use SEA datasets for all purposes but on a 'not-for-profit basis'. BGS has been authorised by DECC to pass on SEA datasets to third parties so that they can use them for all purposes but on a 'not-for-profit' basis.
British Geological Survey (BGS)
Murchison House, West Mains Road
Edinburgh
EH9 3LA
UK
+44 (0)131 667 1000
custodian
Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC)
Admiralty Way
London
SW1A 2HD
UK
+44 0300 060 4000
+44 (0) 1823 284077
originator
British Geological Survey (BGS)
+44 (0)131 667 1000
+44 (0)131 668 4140
pointOfContact
2011-08-30