Mowi's "totally appalling levels of safety, COPFS are going to prosecute" (says Maritime & Coastguard Agency in FOI disclosure)

Here's emails disclosed by the Maritime & Coastguard Agency via Freedom of Information (8 December 2022) – download as a PDF online here and as a Text file online here:

From: ██████████████
Sent: 07 December 2021 14:26
To: ████████████████; ██████████████
Cc: ████████████; ██████████████
Subject: RE: Fish Farm Barges

Appreciate the quick responses.

I wasn’t aware of your case – sounds awful.

I’ll put a meeting in the diary for January.

██

From: ████████████████ <████████████████@mcga.gov.uk>
Sent: 07 December 2021 14:16
To: ██████████████ <██████████████@mcga.gov.uk>; ██████████████ <██████████████@mcga.gov.uk>
Cc: ████████████ <████████████@mcga.gov.uk>; ██████████████ <██████████████@mcga.gov.uk>
Subject: RE: Fish Farm Barges

Sounds a plan, we are dealing with a fatality on our MOWI farm, totally appalling levels
of safety, COPFS are going to prosecute for us.

████████████████
██████████████████████
Head of The Regulatory Compliance Investigations Team
██████████████████
Office of the Chairman & Chief Executive
████████████████@mcga.gov.uk

Maritime and Coastguard Agency
Bay 3/12
105 Commercial Road
Southampton
SO15 1EG
Safer Lives, Safer Ships, Cleaner Seas
www.gov.uk/mca

From: ██████████████ <██████████████@mcga.gov.uk>
Sent: 07 December 2021 13:58
To: ██████████████ <██████████████@mcga.gov.uk>; ████████████████ <████████████████@mcga.gov.uk>
Cc: ████████████ <████████████@mcga.gov.uk>; ██████████████ <██████████████@mcga.gov.uk>
Subject: RE: Fish Farm Barges

Hi ████

I agree it would be useful to meet and discuss this issue a bit further. The industry has
now really expanded the use of these barges. As they get older combined with the sites
now being located in more exposed locations, I suspect the problem will only get worse.

Happy to join.

Kind regards
██████

From: ██████████████ <██████████████@mcga.gov.uk>
Sent: 07 December 2021 13:23
To: ██████████████ <██████████████@mcga.gov.uk>; ████████████████ <████████████████@mcga.gov.uk>
Cc: ████████████ <████████████@mcga.gov.uk>; ██████████████ <██████████████@mcga.gov.uk>
Subject: Fish Farm Barges

Good afternoon,

Hope you are both well.

I wondered if either / both of you would be free in the new year for a chat to discuss fish
farm barges.

We appear to have had four of these sink off Scotland in the last couple of years, with
not only complexities surrounding the recovery of the barge itself (does / should it fall
under the Wreck Removal Convention?), but the recovery of pollutants, oil, debris and
feed.

Fraser you may recall we exchanged some emails on this during the first incident
involving these barges and I think (if memory serves me correctly), once the barge has
been ‘installed’ in its place, then it doesn’t fall under the definition of a vessel? However,
I believe they do fall under MARPOL?

As we have had four of these now, I would just like to check with yourselves if this is
something we should look into further, or not as the case may be.

Kind Regards,

████

██████████████, Deputy to the SOSREP
Direct: ████████████
Mobile: ████████████
Email: ██████████████@mcga.gov.uk

"The industry has now really expanded the use of these barges" @MCA_media "As they get older combined with the sites now being located in more exposed locations, I suspect the problem will only get worse" https://t.co/SGtfuiIlJr @GaelForceGroup @MowiScotlandLtd @GriegShetland pic.twitter.com/jysW9maZpm

— Don Staniford (@TheGAAIA) December 9, 2022

Here's a media backgrounder issued by $camon $cotland (9 December 2022):

Read in full online here

Mowi in the Dock for Death of Clive Hendry: "We are dealing with a fatality on our MOWI farm, totally appalling levels of safety, COPFS are going to prosecute for us" says the 'Head of The Regulatory Compliance Investigations Team' @MCA_media https://t.co/SGtfuj0uXz #Mowi #Death pic.twitter.com/h5FbOxGSLn

— Don Staniford (@TheGAAIA) December 9, 2022

$camon $cotland filed another FOI request with the Maritime & Coastguard Agency (8 December 2022):

From: Don Staniford <salmonfarmingkills@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Dec 8, 2022 at 1:54 PM
Subject: Re: FOI ID 4103 – Portree Fish Feed Barge
To: Stan Woznicki <Stan.Woznicki@mcga.gov.uk>
Cc: FOI <FOI@mcga.gov.uk>, HM Coastguard <HMCoastguard@mcga.gov.uk>, Sarah Walker <Sarah.Walker@mcga.gov.uk>

Stan,

As a follow up to the FOI disclosure, could you please provide an update on discussions re. feed barge safety?

I refer specifically to:

Appreciate the quick responses.

I wasn’t aware of your case – sounds awful.

I’ll put a meeting in the diary for January.

██

Sounds a plan, we are dealing with a fatality on our MOWI farm, totally appalling levels
of safety, COPFS are going to prosecute for us.

Hi ████

Happy to join.

Kind regards
██████

Good afternoon,

Hope you are both well.

I wondered if either / both of you would be free in the new year for a chat to discuss fish
farm barges.

As we have had four of these now, I would just like to check with yourselves if this is
something we should look into further, or not as the case may be.

Kind Regards,

████

Please provide information relating to the January 2022 meeting/discussion and any further discussions on fish farm barges in terms of safety, sinking, prosecutions and problems.

Please consider this a formal FOI request under the relevant FOI and Environmental Information regulations.

Thanks,

Don Staniford

Director, $camon $cotland

"Afternoon ████, Who would have thought that a fish farm barge would sink in poor weather! Here is another to add to the list" (email from the Counter Pollution & Salvage Officer at HM Coastguard reporting the sinking of the @GaelForceGroup feed barge off Portree in Nov 2021) pic.twitter.com/5PAnOdR52X

— Don Staniford (@TheGAAIA) December 10, 2022