Small proportion of spills actually detected
Since 2007, when the CleanSeaNet service went live, 44,383 possible illegal discharges of oily waste have been reported.
In 2019 only 30 per cent of spills identified by EMSA were verified on site by the relevant state authorities.
The effectiveness of such checks, however, is highly dependent on the time that elapses after the satellite images were acquired. The longer it takes, says EMSA, the greater the chance of authorities finding nothing.
In 2019, of those 30 per cent verified reports, only five per cent were carried out within three hours of satellite detection. That’s roughly 120 cases.
In 42 per cent of those 120 cases, the presence of either mineral oils or other substances was confirmed.
Undoubtedly, the number of actual spills is far higher and, worryingly, they are not stopping
Between 2018 and 2020, EMSA data shows a rise in the overall number of suspected spills. They claim it is due to the increased area covered, but experts say even this is an underestimation.
Satellites monitor our seas for only a few hours a day and, when they do, do not cover the seas completely. If the sea is rough, a spill may also dissolve from the surface more quickly, leaving no visual trace but penetrating deeper. According to some studies and the accounts of crew members, illegal spills tend to occur at night, when visual verification by authorities is more difficult, although radar images can still detect the presence of substances.
For these reasons, SkyTruth combined data and assumptions from EMSA with calculations of satellite coverage and, based on a conservative estimation, concluded that every year up to 2,964 vessels discharge mineral oil into EU waters. That’s roughly eight every day, the majority of which passes unseen by satellites, or more than 10 times the number of confirmed cases in 2020.
Reliance on merchant vessels
Over the past two decades, the European Union has adopted a series of directives to ensure compliance with the MARPOL Convention by all ships sailing European seas.
Among the rules are those requiring member states to equip their ports with facilities for the collection and disposal of pollutants produced on board ships and to implement environmental standards according to EU Directive 2000/59/EC. However, individual member states vary in their interpretation of the key concepts of that directive, such as those concerning the adequacy of port facilities.
For this reason, in 2016 the Commission published guidelines for the interpretation of the Directive, stressing that even legal discharges under MARPOL should not be allowed and that those waste products should be delivered to port facilities.
In some cases, authorities do detect the presence of substances in the water and even manage to track down the culprit, but those in charge of the vessel then claim to have released substances in concentrations covered by the MARPOL, as illustrated by two recent cases in Italian waters.
In September 2021, the Cagliari coastguard identified a ship that had dumped the water it had used to clean its tanks, which previously contained palm oil, into the sea, and in October 2020, authorities in the port of Augusta identified a ship that had dumped grey water into the sea. In both cases, the alleged culprits claimed to have acted in compliance with MARPOL and the authorities accepted this.
In addition, in 2019, the EU introduced an updated directive to regulate port reception facilities and to strengthen the mandatory delivery of waste: among the changes is the introduction of a waste delivery receipt that operators or port authorities must give to the ship’s master and that must be available on board for at least two years, in order to facilitate future monitoring.
Authorities, however, appear to be playing whack-a-mole with ship operators.
Between January 1 and November 1 last year, for example, Italy said it had received 282 CSN alerts. In each case, Italian authorities said, the Italian Coast Guard checks ships passing in the vicinity of the suspected spill and asks them to verify the presence of any substances in the sea. It also checks logbooks. In some cases it also sends requests to ports in other EU member states to check documents on board.
Yet in the 282 cases over that period, the Coast Guard could not confirm a single case of illegal wastewater discharge, authorities said in answer to an FOI request.
Germany has its own limitations; there, authorities have the use of a plane to check reported spills but it can only fly when weather conditions are suitable.
EMSA initially failed to reply to an FOI request asking for all details of CSN reports from 2020. In response, the European Ombudsman, an independent oversight body, opened a proceeding against EMSA on February 3 last year and the following day the agency published some of the requested data online.
According to this data, when authorities rely on merchant vessels to check a potential spill, in 86 per cent of cases nothing is found; that figure drops to 51 per cent when a fixed-wing aircraft is used.
Between 2012 and 2021, Romanian authorities received 420 CSN alerts but, given time constraints, rely mainly on vessels nearby, as does the UK.
Croatia receives around 40 reports per month but has not identified any irregularities in the past five years, according to a response to an FOI request.
Spanish authorities did not respond to an FOI request but later explained that audits often cannot be carried out due to adverse weather conditions; they also pointed to staff cuts as an additional factor. Spain issued 27 penalties in 2020 and 15 in 2021.
The Commission is in the process of revising EU rules on illegal discharges from ships and plans to adopt a text by early 2023. Current systems in place “are not optimally used or coordinated,” the Commission has said.
This is data from an EMSA report (EMTER, 2021), not an FOI request
Better to add a little nuance here:
“Between 2018 and 2020, EMSA data shows a rise in the overall number of suspected spills. EMSA say it is caused by the increase of area covered, but experts say the detections are an underestimation.”
