Tonnage of sediment deposited within specific areas: EIR release

Information requested

Please provide the following:

Tonnage (wet tonnes) of sediment deposited within the areas defined by the following co-ordinates:

1) 56 deg 45.039' N, 002 deg 25.416'W
56 deg 45.017' N, 002 deg 24.139'W
56 deg 42.448' N, 002 deg 26.660'W
56 deg 42.446'N, 002 deg 25.269'W
Montrose Bay.

2) Within a circle with a radius of 0.25 nautical miles centred at the following co-ordinates;

56 deg 39.5' N, 002 deg 26.50'W
Lunan Bay.

This refers to a dredging operation by UKD Marlin from 12th to 15th June 2020.

Response

1. On 7 October 2020 MS-LOT received an email from the Montrose Port Authority providing deposit logs for the 12, 13 and 14 June 2020 relating to the area of interest specified in point 1 of your request above. The deposit logs report the amounts of sediment deposited in tonnes, not wet tonnes.

During the period from 12 to 14 June 2020, 53,350 tonnes have been deposited to Montrose Bay, 21,517 cubic metres. The Montrose Port Authority converted these figures to 35,503 wet tonnes. Marine Licence 07149/20/0 specifies that 24,600 wet tonnes must be deposited at Montrose Bay. This amount meets the minimum required.

The annual dredging return forms were sent out to the licensees on 1 February this month and we have not yet had a response from Montrose Port Authority. The forms do not need to be returned to MS-LOT until 1 March 2021. These return forms will provide wet tonne figures of sediment deposited, and where, for each month in 2020, as required under condition 6 of marine licence 07149/20/0. This information may not be available until after the 1 March 2021 deadline.

As a request can only be made for information that we hold at the time of the request, if you wish to access to this information, you will need to make a fresh request after 1 March 2021 to obtain it a copy of the annual dredging return forms.

2. While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide the information you have requested in point 2 of your request above, because an exception under regulations 10(4)(a) (information not held) of the EIRs applies to that information. The reason why this exception applies is explained in the Annex to this letter.

Although, the Montrose Port Authority did not provide MS-LOT with a conversion of the Lunan Bay figures to wet tonnes on 7 October 2020, the following information relating to the area of interest specified in point 2 of your request above was provided: 3780 tonnes, 1469 cubic metres was deposited to Lunan Bay which was one trip. These figures relate to the period from 12 to 14 June 2020. We are including these figures to be helpful.

As outlined above in my response to point 1, the annual dredging return forms do not need to be returned to MS-LOT until 1 March 2021. These return forms will provide wet tonne figures of sediment deposited, and where, for each month in 2020, as required under condition 6 of marine licence 07149/20/0. As outlined above already, this information may also not be available until after the 1 March 2021 deadline.

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FOI - 202100134787 - Information Released - Annex

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