Klondikers

These are vessels which many Port Health Officers are familiar with. In the past, at certain times Lerwick Port would host well over 100 of these vessels, all fully crewed and actively trading. They are essentially floating fish processing factories, and are not the best examples of clean and healthy environments in which to live.

In the early 1990's no less than 3 vessels grounded, resulting in the loss of the vessel, but happily with no loss of life.

In November 1993, in the early hours of the morning, The Lunokhod grounded on the southern tip of the island of Bressay at Kirkabister Ness, just off Lerwick.

Just 10 days later, the Borodinskoye Poleye struck the Unicorn rock, located in the north mouth of Lerwick Harbour, and stayed there. A lot of oil was pumped off but as the ship broke up a huge amount of plastic and packaging was released into the seas - and was washed up on the coastline downwind.

Finally on Halloween, 1994, The Pionersk, a Kalingrad registered 10,074 tonne vessel hit the rocks at Brindister, and whilst a good amount of oil was retrieved, masses of packaging and wooden barrels were released. Refuse from the wreck is still coming up to this day.

In all incidents, quantities of oil have been released, both bunkers and heavy fuel oil.

Also released has been the various cargoes and associated supplies. These vessels carry immense amounts of packaging, both cardboard and plastic. The cardboard does not cause any major problems quickly becoming waterlogged and breaking up. The plastics however pose a major headache. They are washed up, blown about and evenly distributed over large areas of adjacent coast near the wreck.

Also released are all the medical supplies and instruments, including syringes and drugs. These items, along with food supplies, wood and other debris from the wreck wash up inter-mingled with the plastics. This means the operatives cleaning up the debris, or the members of the public "scranning" or beach combing cannot see the hidden dangers.

Quite often, the plastics and other debris is also covered with the oil from the wreck which makes disposal and handling of the refuse even more difficult.

Whilst the Local Authority does not have to clean up areas of coastline, the scale of the operations, and amount of debris is usually well beyond the means of the local landowners.

Within the port areas, the harbour Authority does take on the responsibility for clean up operations and also does it's best to recoup the losses from the owners of the vessel concerned which is no easy task.

Lerwick Harbour Trust responded to the most recent grounding of the Pionersk by arresting a vessel owned by the same company as the lost vessel. Recovery of the costs in this case took 2 years.