Shetland anger turns on officials

By Catherine Brown

Anger on Shetland over the use of dispersants on the Braer oil spill last month has deepened after the government's admission that some of the chemicals used failed the Agriculture Department's own toxicity tests. Damage to the Shetland coastline from another dispersant “not proposed for use on rocky shores” is still unclear.

Local residents have formed a South Mainland Action Group to consider suing the British government. Medical authorities nevertheless are claiming the initial symptoms many islanders are experiencing will be short-lived.

Dr Derek Cox, Shetland's senior medical officer, conceded “a tiny handful of abnormal results have already been picked up”, only to add, “We don't think they are necessarily connected with the oil”.

Heated public meetings organised by local residents and Greenpeace show such official confidence is not shared by people still suffering from mouth ulcers, nausea and stomach and chest pains.

The local fishing industry has been told that more than 2 million farmed salmon are contaminated. Water sampling indicates a “high to very high concentration” of oil in the west of the 400 square mile fisheries exclusion zone. The industry is asking how the fish are to be safely disposed of.

The real effects of the Braer spill will never be accurately measured. At a temporary research centre on Shetland, scientist Ray Johnstone explains, “I suppose people want us to say where the oil is, but frankly I don't know. We're trying to find it, to discover how it moves through the water to the food chain and perhaps to human consumption.”

Meanwhile the Department of Transport's proposed “voluntary code of conduct”, to be introduced next month, inspires little confidence in a similar disaster being averted. Oil tankers will be politely requested to avoid three environmentally sensitive channels off the north of Scotland.

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