Publication - FOI/EIR release

Data relating to Broad Bay: EIR release

Published: 10 March 2021
Directorate: Marine Directorate
Topic: Environment and climate change, Marine and fisheries, Public sector
FOI reference: FOI/202000105738
Date received: 30 October 2020
Date responded: 30 November 2020

Information request and response under the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004

Information requested

Could I please have whatever survey data (trawl, dredge, camera, trap etc.) are available for Broad Bay, from 1994 to the present?

Response

As the information you have requested is ‘environmental information’ for the purposes of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs), we are required to deal with your request under those Regulations. We are applying the exemption at section 39(2) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA), so that we do not also have to deal with your request under FOISA.

This exemption is subject to the ‘public interest test’. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption, because there is no public interest in dealing with the same request under two different regimes. This is essentially a technical point and has no material effect on the outcome of your request.

Marine Scotland Science and the Marine Scotland Licensing and Operations Team have collated the following datasets which correspond to this request.

1. Report of Broad Bay Transocean Winner ROV footage - review of anchor leg impact on seabed in 2016 (names of authors have been redacted)

2. Spreadsheet of Broad Bay Transocean Winner ROV footage - review of anchor leg impact on seabed in 2016

With regard to items 1 and 2, please contact Transocean before using the images in any form of documentation and insert the copyright to Transocean.

3. Transocean Winner – high level review of ROV video in 2016 (names of authors redacted)

4. Marine Scotland: Incident Support Information – Transocean Winner, interim report 2016.
Final Incident Support Information - Transocean Winner January 2018 | Marine Scotland Data Publications

This report relates to the Transocean Winner semi-submersible rig which ran aground near Dalmore on the Isle of Lewis and was subsequently towed to Broad Bay. This report contains survey images and descriptions which are interpreted by Marine Scotland.

5. Spreadsheet with extracts of MSS scallop survey data in Broad Bay

6. 0516A cruise report of scallop stocks on the West coast of Scotland (names of personnel have been redacted)

7. Link to 0407H cruise from 2007 on board the MV Aora,

https://www.bodc.ac.uk/resources/inventories/cruise_inventory/report/7926/

8. Link to marine litter data (ICES DATRA) dataset collection

https://datras.ices.dk/Data_products/Download/Download_Data_public.aspx

Litter data can be accessed from the ICES DATRA dataset. For the data products field select: Litter Assessment Output. Data will be stored under Scottish West Coast Groundfish Survey. Select all quarters and the year of interest.

9. Link to contaminants data (UK Clean Seas Environment Monitoring Programme (CSEMP),

https://www.bodc.ac.uk/projects/data_management/uk/merman/

MSS have previously sampled a site in Broad Bay for sediment and fish and reported contaminants and biological effects data to Merman (see web link). Assessment of the data can be viewed here or by contacting merman@bodc.ac.uk.

As noted above, names of individuals have been redacted from the information supplied. This is because an exception under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs (personal information) applies to that information because it is personal data of a third party and disclosing it would contravene the data protection principles in Article 5(1) of the General Data Protection Regulation and in section 34(1) of the Data Protection Act 2018. This exception is not subject to the ‘public interest test’, so we are not required to consider if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exception.

Under regulation 6(1)(b) of the EIRs, we do not have to give you information which is already publicly available and easily accessible to you in another form or format. This refers to the links supplied at items 4, 7, 8 and 9 above.

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