Oil to be cleared from North Beach

East Suffolk Council have announced (23/2/21) they will clear the exposed lumps of fuel oil previously buried in 1978 on North Beach, and will try to work out what to do next. They think that the oil may be more liquid in the bigger deposits. Anglian Water sewerage pipes run underneath the dunes, which is a further problem. ESC are adamant they are closely monitoring the situation.

Questions about the Eleni V oil on North Beach are ramping up. Local politicians are asking when something is going to be done. Social media is doing its strident thing.

It's possible that ESC action has been taken because more and more oil is being revealed by the recent storms, rather than in reaction to local concern.

Recent storms have scoured the beach, creating new undulating shore shapes, with a new bank arising immediately north of the end of the concrete sea wall. The tides regularly reach the new 'cliff' base. It's quite possible to imagine a powerful two or three day storm which coincided with north easterlies and spring tides taking 10 feet in one go. The oil could then become a minor issue in comparison.

In 2014 the Eastern Daily Press reported that Great Yarmouth Borough Council had commissioned a survey of the oil pollution from the Eleni V disaster, but we have been unable to unearth a copy of the £25k survey. We're investigating. 

In 1978 The tanker Eleni V was rammed just off Great Yarmouth, and was eventually blown up, chucking around 5,000 tons of fuel oil into the North Sea. Much of it ended up on the beaches from North Norfolk to Aldeburgh. Fuel oil, they discovered at the time, doesn't disperse easily. The solution was to bury it. Over the last few years or so, erosion has exposed some of the buried oil on several East Anglian beaches.