On Tuesday 29th March, Cedre's 26th Information Day was held as a webinar. This year’s theme for this annual event was the consideration of the environmental impacts of accidental water pollution. The programme covered a wide range of topics, from prevention to compensation, operational response, remediation and post-spill environmental monitoring. To illustrate these topics, Cedre called upon key players working in these fields: French Ministry of Ecological Transition, United Nations, renowned scientists (UBO and Cedre), oil industry (IPIECA), IOPC Funds and Ligue de Protection des Oiseaux. The event was attended by 130 participants, including 25 listening in English.

Cedre is seeking work-study students in the fields of accounting, laboratory analysis and research into pollutant behaviour. The offers will soon be published on our website. Do not hesitate to spread the word if you know a student who shares our values (expertise, responsiveness and environmental protection).

Cedre will be attending INTERSPILL from 21st to 23rd June 2022 to lead scientific workshops, present conferences and run a stand. If you would like to meet us, please visit our stand E80, which we will be sharing with SYCOPOL, or email contact@cedre.fr to make an appointment.

Cedre has partnered with IMT Mines Alès, (ES)² and the Aqua Sûreté network to organise a new training session on inland water incident management. The course will be held from 14th to 16th June in Alès. It is tailored towards private and public operators of drinking water supply or sanitation systems, QHSE managers, safety and incident managers, local authority consulting engineers, administration staff (health board, environment directorate...) or local authority staff, military infrastructure engineers, firefighters and police officers. Watch the training video and contact formation@cedre.fr for further information and to register.

In order to strengthen their teams’ onshore and at-sea oil spill response skills, seven industrial firms based in the French West Indies and French Guiana decided to offer some twenty employees theoretical and practical training in maritime oil spill response delivered by Cedre to meet IMO standards (level 2). Two representatives of the French Navy also attended part of this training course organised from 7th to 10th March at Fort Saint-Louis in Fort-de-France with the support of AEM, EDF Bellefontaine and SARA.

For the second time, the Region of Brittany chose to call upon Cedre's expertise to review the spill response equipment of one of its ports. After Saint-Malo, this time it was for the port of Lorient. Two engineers were sent on-site from 8th to 10th March. The mission consisted of a visit to all the port’s sites and spill response equipment stockpiles to carry out an inventory of the spill response equipment already present on site in the port’s various docks (pleasure boating, commerce, fishing and ship repair). This will be followed up with assistance in equipment procurement and then with a spill response exercise using the newly acquired equipment. The project requires working sessions with the port’s various stakeholders.

On 28th February and 10th March, Cedre organised two information webinars for the operators of the French beach litter and estuary litter monitoring networks it coordinates. The first webinar dealt with macro-litter monitoring while the second focused on microplastics. The webinars were attended by over 50 participants and comprised an overview of the context and organisation of marine litter monitoring in France and was the opportunity to present the structure and operation of the monitoring networks, share the results relating to the abundance and nature of the litter and to answer questions raised by the operators involved. These exchanges were an opportunity to highlight the important contribution of these networks and operators to the implementation of public policies aimed at reducing marine litter and improving the quality of French marine waters.

Two behaviour trials were carried out in the Polludrome® on hydraulic oils used in the construction of offshore wind farms. In addition to these trials, a biodegradability study is being conducted through laboratory tests.

The CleanAtlantic project has been awarded a budget extension to pursue its actions until June 2023. This project, launched in 2017, co-financed by the European Interreg Atlantic programme, led by CETMAR (Centro Tecnológico del Mar, Spain) and involving 19 partners, aims to protect biodiversity and ecosystem services in the Atlantic area (Spain, France, Ireland, Portugal and the United Kingdom) by improving capabilities to monitor, prevent and remove marine litter. The kick-off meeting for this second phase was held online on 3rd March. In this second phase, which aims to further pursue and enrich the actions conducted during the first phase of the project, Cedre will continue to work on the inventory of marine litter reduction initiatives. It will also extend its work on the identification of litter hotspots and clean-up techniques on the coastline and will initiate a study on clean-up techniques for floating litter in ports.

From 5th to 14th March, Cedre was represented in Martinique where, together with the Martinique Marine Nature Park, it launched the monitoring of macro-litter washed up on the shoreline, within the framework of the national marine litter monitoring networks. Based on the site surveys carried out on the Martinique shoreline (Atlantic and Caribbean coasts), three sites were selected that have been integrated into the national shoreline litter monitoring network. The staff of the Marine Nature Park were trained in the different monitoring protocols. Several samples were also taken and brought back to Cedre for analysis. These data will be used to assess the pollution of the French coastline by macro-litter, meso-waste litter and large microplastics.

From 14th to 16th March, Cedre was in the Basque Country to conduct various actions. Within the framework of the national monitoring network for litter from drainage basins, Cedre surveyed the Adour, accompanied by Surfrider Foundation Europe, in order to identify sites which could be included in the network. Cedre then visited several coastal sites, from the mouth of the Courant d’Huchet in the Landes as far as Hendaye in the Basque Country, in order to make observations following reports of strandings of meso-litter and large microplastics. Finally, Cedre met with Rivages Pro Tech to exchange information on techniques for dealing with floating litter in ports and to discuss possible future collaboration.

On 22nd and 23rd March, we travelled to Vigo, Spain for the 3rd Steering Committee meeting of the MANIFESTS project. Jointly organised by Cedre and CETMAR, this was the first face-to-face Steering Committee meeting since the launch of the project. On the agenda: a presentation of the experimental work and initial results that will enable the tools developed within the framework of the project to be improved; discussions on risk assessment and management methods; presentations of the new modules and tools that will make up the MANIFESTS Decision Support System. Cedre presented its work on the evaporation kinetics of HNS mixtures and, with CEPPOL, the upcoming the sea trial, scheduled to run from 30th May to 3rd June 2022. For more information visit the MANIFESTS project website.

Following an initial session held at Cedre in 2021, 14 representatives of the Yvelines fire and rescue service received practical training in oil spill response in inland waters between 28th March and 1st April. This course, which took place at our facilities, aimed to provide concrete and practical knowledge of response principles, oil behaviour, the response techniques and equipment used by the Yvelines fire and rescue service’s pollution response unit and the organisation of a clean-up worksite. This year’s 4 days of training were once again rich in discussions and experience sharing: as always, a positive experience for participants and trainers alike!