Onshore response

More than 500 people and 2,000 metres of boom in addition to a lot of ancillary equipment were used on over thirty clean-up sites. Protective booms were deployed in the rivers and the marsh areas that opened out onto the Bay and also at the entrance to ports and harbours (360 metres of boom upstream of Pembroke harbour, 300 metres of boom at Milford Haven harbour, 120 metres of boom at Neyland harbour and 740 metres of boom to protect the marshes and the mudflats in Milford Haven Bay).

Beach clean-up operations were focused on the immediate vicinity of Milford Haven and particularly in West Angle Bay, Angle Bay and Blucks Pool. Conventional coastal clean-up resources were used and collection was conducted with squeegees, shovels, bags and drums and vacuum tanks. In areas where mechanical collection was impracticable, recovery and collection were done by hand and recovered materials were stored on the spot in bags.

Most collection sites were able to use OSRL resources (Desmi 250 recovery pumps, Vaculite recovery systems, Komara skimmers) and national resources such as vacuum tanks, liquid manure trucks, HP sprayers for water flushing.

About 14,000 cu.m. of liquid emulsion and 3,000 cu.m. of oiled waste (including seaweed) were in fact recovered and contained 3,000 to 4,000 tonnes of oil. Liquid waste was shipped to the Texaco refinery in Pembroke for settling and the solid waste was taken to the Texaco refinery for treatment prior to being used for landfarming and some of the waste was shipped to refuse dumps to be mixed with household waste for the purposes of codisposal.