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Plymouth hosts 16th EBSA Symposium
Volume 17/Number 3/March 1986
ronmental Protection of the North Sea is to be held in London in February/March 1987. The Conference, to be organized by the Water Research Centre, will include contributions from national and international scientific bodies, environmental groups and industry. The objective is to provide a balanced assessment, based on scientific evidence, of the impact of potential pollutants on the quality of the North Sea. Such an assessment will contribute to the decision-making process for future pollution control measures. It is intended that the proceedings of the conference will be published prior to the Ministerial Conference on the North Sea scheduled for November 1987. The programme will include assessments of the sources and quantities of potentially polluting substances reaching the North Sea. Subjects for discussion will be the evidence for any detrimental effects to the North Sea environment, control methodologies and the extent and adequacy of monitoring programmes.
The National Water Industry Handbook This summer marks a first for the UK water industry with the launch of a new annual publication, The National Water Industry Handbook. With a circulation of 11 500 it will be the only annual publication to serve the whole UK industry, with the largest distribution to professional water specialists. Distributed free to all members of the IWES, IPHE, IWPC and water authorities to district level, the National Water Industry Handbook will be divided into two sections--editorial and reference. Contributors to the first issue include S. Whipp, manager of water mains distribution implementation at the Water Research Centre, Swindon, UK; training development officer I. Muir MIWPC FAWO, of the Water Industry Training Association; and D. G. M. Roberts MA FIWES MIWPC, a senior partner of John Taylor & Sons, Consultants, London. The reference section provides an unprecedented opportunity for customers, suppliers and specialists in the industry to make contact with each other. A comprehensive reference work to water related bodies and organizations in the industry, it will also include a glossary of trade and brand names and an extensive buyers guide. Apart from the home market, the handbook's circulation will encompass all British embassies and trade missions overseas. The National Water Industry Handbook is published by Business Information Limited, 112-114 Thorpe Road, Norwich NR1 1RX.
Plymouth Hosts 16th EBSA Symposium The 16th EBSA Symposium on Dynamics of Turbid Coastal Environments, will be held from 1 to 5 Septem-
ber 1986 at Plymouth Polytechnic, Plymouth, Devon, England. The symposium will examine recent research on dynamic processes in turbid estuarine and coastal waters, stressing the involvement of suspended sediment in physical, chemical and biological processes, and the relevance of this research to applied problems. Invited and contributed papers will be published in a special issue of Continental Shelf Research. For further details contact: EBSA 16, Institute for Marine Environmental Research, Prospect Place, The Hoe, Plymouth, Devon, PL1 3DH, UK.
North American News Mathematical Models for Arctic Submarine Pipeline Protection In addition to the usual risks associated with operating pipelines in areas such as the North Sea, the Arctic poses an additional hazard; the scouring of the seabed by ice. In areas like the Beaufort Sea, scouring is caused by the formation of pressure ridges in the ice, the keels of which can create scours up to 5~ m deep in water depths of 15-40 m and 1-2 m deep in water depths outside this range. In areas off the east coast of Canada scouring is caused by icebergs and the severity of scouring is, therefore, dependent on water depth and the maximum size of iceberg. Scours up to 17 m, and usually 2½-9 m, can be created in water depths up to 400 m. A number of methods exist for protecting the environment against spillage from a ruptured pipeline. These fall into two categories, namely probability reduction and consequence reduction. Burying the pipeline (probability reduction) should utilize available data to predict the depth at which ice scours should not affect the integrity of the pipeline (a similar concept to the 100 year storm design criteria for North Sea platforms). However, trenching is expensive, especially in Arctic and other hostile waters where producing a 7-.8 m deep trench may not be technologically feasible. Hence 'segmenting' the pipeline with valves, using two smaller pipelines instead of one large one and operating an ice feature scour warning system should also be considered, all of which are consequence reduction steps. Valve segmentation would reduce the volume of oil released if the pipeline were damaged but it would obviously be cost ineffective to install too many valves. The efficiency of using two pipelines (twinning) to reduce the volume of a spill if one pipe is damaged and to allow production to continue at reduced capacity depends on whether the pipelines can be positioned so that only one line is likely to be damaged by a given ice feature. The site topography and length of ice scours in the area have a major bearing on this. An ice feature scour warning system should provide a warning of approaching ice features so that, if a large feature poses a high risk of damage to the pipeline, it can be shut down and evacuated (thus reducing the volume of the oil likely to be spilled). According to a recent article in Oil and Gas Journal 85
ronmental Protection of the North Sea is to be held in London in February/March 1987. The Conference, to be organized by the Water Research Centre, will include contributions from national and international scientific bodies, environmental groups and industry. The objective is to provide a balanced assessment, based on scientific evidence, of the impact of potential pollutants on the quality of the North Sea. Such an assessment will contribute to the decision-making process for future pollution control measures. It is intended that the proceedings of the conference will be published prior to the Ministerial Conference on the North Sea scheduled for November 1987. The programme will include assessments of the sources and quantities of potentially polluting substances reaching the North Sea. Subjects for discussion will be the evidence for any detrimental effects to the North Sea environment, control methodologies and the extent and adequacy of monitoring programmes.
The National Water Industry Handbook This summer marks a first for the UK water industry with the launch of a new annual publication, The National Water Industry Handbook. With a circulation of 11 500 it will be the only annual publication to serve the whole UK industry, with the largest distribution to professional water specialists. Distributed free to all members of the IWES, IPHE, IWPC and water authorities to district level, the National Water Industry Handbook will be divided into two sections--editorial and reference. Contributors to the first issue include S. Whipp, manager of water mains distribution implementation at the Water Research Centre, Swindon, UK; training development officer I. Muir MIWPC FAWO, of the Water Industry Training Association; and D. G. M. Roberts MA FIWES MIWPC, a senior partner of John Taylor & Sons, Consultants, London. The reference section provides an unprecedented opportunity for customers, suppliers and specialists in the industry to make contact with each other. A comprehensive reference work to water related bodies and organizations in the industry, it will also include a glossary of trade and brand names and an extensive buyers guide. Apart from the home market, the handbook's circulation will encompass all British embassies and trade missions overseas. The National Water Industry Handbook is published by Business Information Limited, 112-114 Thorpe Road, Norwich NR1 1RX.
Plymouth Hosts 16th EBSA Symposium The 16th EBSA Symposium on Dynamics of Turbid Coastal Environments, will be held from 1 to 5 Septem-
ber 1986 at Plymouth Polytechnic, Plymouth, Devon, England. The symposium will examine recent research on dynamic processes in turbid estuarine and coastal waters, stressing the involvement of suspended sediment in physical, chemical and biological processes, and the relevance of this research to applied problems. Invited and contributed papers will be published in a special issue of Continental Shelf Research. For further details contact: EBSA 16, Institute for Marine Environmental Research, Prospect Place, The Hoe, Plymouth, Devon, PL1 3DH, UK.
North American News Mathematical Models for Arctic Submarine Pipeline Protection In addition to the usual risks associated with operating pipelines in areas such as the North Sea, the Arctic poses an additional hazard; the scouring of the seabed by ice. In areas like the Beaufort Sea, scouring is caused by the formation of pressure ridges in the ice, the keels of which can create scours up to 5~ m deep in water depths of 15-40 m and 1-2 m deep in water depths outside this range. In areas off the east coast of Canada scouring is caused by icebergs and the severity of scouring is, therefore, dependent on water depth and the maximum size of iceberg. Scours up to 17 m, and usually 2½-9 m, can be created in water depths up to 400 m. A number of methods exist for protecting the environment against spillage from a ruptured pipeline. These fall into two categories, namely probability reduction and consequence reduction. Burying the pipeline (probability reduction) should utilize available data to predict the depth at which ice scours should not affect the integrity of the pipeline (a similar concept to the 100 year storm design criteria for North Sea platforms). However, trenching is expensive, especially in Arctic and other hostile waters where producing a 7-.8 m deep trench may not be technologically feasible. Hence 'segmenting' the pipeline with valves, using two smaller pipelines instead of one large one and operating an ice feature scour warning system should also be considered, all of which are consequence reduction steps. Valve segmentation would reduce the volume of oil released if the pipeline were damaged but it would obviously be cost ineffective to install too many valves. The efficiency of using two pipelines (twinning) to reduce the volume of a spill if one pipe is damaged and to allow production to continue at reduced capacity depends on whether the pipelines can be positioned so that only one line is likely to be damaged by a given ice feature. The site topography and length of ice scours in the area have a major bearing on this. An ice feature scour warning system should provide a warning of approaching ice features so that, if a large feature poses a high risk of damage to the pipeline, it can be shut down and evacuated (thus reducing the volume of the oil likely to be spilled). According to a recent article in Oil and Gas Journal 85