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The Esso Bernicia report…
Marine Pollution Bulletin, Vt~)l. 12, No. 8, pp. 255-257, 1981 Printed in Great Britain
The Esso Bernicia Report... The onset of North Sea oil development was accompanied by a loud chorus of predictions from people who were not involved and knew nothing about the matter that the ruthless and irresponsible oil industry would soon destroy this fragile natural environment, continually swept by what elsewhere would be called hurricanes, over the heads of its devoted but powerless inhabitants. It therefore seems a little ironic that in the event by far the most serious incident in the British sector to date (the Norwegian sector is another matter) proves to involve a spillage of fuel oil that had nothing to do with the North Sea from a vessel in the care of the Shetland Islands Council, hereafter referred to as the SIC. The background to the incident was described fully in Marine Pollution Bulletin at the time (10, 93-97, 1979), since when we have had to wait a total of 2½ years for an official explanation of the disaster. Now that the long-delayed Royal Opening of the Shetland Oil Terminal has been safely accomplished to the accompaniment of nothing more embarrassing than a small and respectful peripheral explosion from the IRA, this report has at last been released under cover of the associated furore. In the event the Government decided that they did not wish to be associated with the incident and delegated the inquiry into it to the SIC, who set up a committee of the chairmen of their committes (sic) to deal with the matter. Their ultimate conclusion is that it would have been much better handled by an outside body with better technical assistance and a more experienced, legally-qualified, chairman. Presumably owing to legal considerations they appear either to have failed to secure sight of most of the more critical relevant technical reports on what went wrong, or if they did, fail to quote them. It is quite remarkable that the only individual who is found in any way to blame is the person who dared retrospectively to insert four words revealing the basic cause for the incident in the port control room communications log (conscientiously reproduced in facsimile as Appendix 1) when he was not on duty at the time so that it was none of his business. Basically it appears that according to the criteria accepted at the time either three or four tugs might be required for such a vessel, according to the weather conditions, and it was customary for the agents first to order four, as they did by telephone on 28 December, and then follow this up at least twelve hours before the vessel was expected, with a definitive written order, as they did, ordering three tugs, the following day. There is no discussion as to whether financial considerations might affect the number ordered. In the event the tug crews wished to take their 1978-79 New Year holiday at the time, but it was agreed that they should observe the usual procedure for holidays, with three crews on duty and the fourth available at home. The matter was reconsidered during 30 December in the light of the weather, when the pilot, who was ultimately responsible, would initially have preferred to have four tugs, but agreed to make do with three. Everyone appears
0025 - 326X/81/080255 - 0 3 $02.00/0 Pergamon Press Lid.
to agree that it seemed a sound decision at the time and that subsequently the pilot carried out his duties faultlessly. In the middle of the night the Esso Bernicia duly appeared and one tug started to push her in to the jetty while the other two held her steady with warps at the bow and stern against a south-east wind which was tending to blow her on shore. At this point there was a surge in the winch holding the warp on board the new tug Stonechakker at the stern. A faulty coupling in the associated hydraulic system failed, and the hydraulic fluid cascaded over one of the engines and caught fire (there is no discussion whether the way in which the tug was handled might have influenced the moment when the equipment failed). The warp was hastily cast off from the tanker to enable the burning tug to get clear, and while the fire was soon put out, it then took some time for the tug to retrieve the warp, during which it was immobilized and formed an obstruction to manoeuvres around the stern of the tanker. At this point the tug which had been pushing the tanker against the jetty, the Swaabie, which unfortunately was not secured to it, was instructed to move to the stern and make fast in order to prevent it drifting or blowing ashore. Its movements were then hampered by a need to keep clear of the propellors when the tanker briefly tried to steam clear of the jetty. Apparently nobody came at first to make its warp fast to the tanker, it is said because the stern mooring, which was already in place, was coming under strain, and liable to break with catastrophic results. At the same time the bow mooring was released in circumstances which are not fully explained, so that the stern swung inshore and hit the jetty, rupturing the fuel tanks, and the stern mooring duly broke. By the time a trainee pilot had mustered assistance to make the Swaabie fast, and the movements of the tanker were brought under control, the damage had been done, and oil was loose in the harbour in the middle of a bleak northern winter night. It had been agreed a short time before that at this point responsibility for clearing up the mess would be transferred from the SIC to the representatives of the oil industry running the terminal. Although the oil pollution control officer was still so new to the job that his telephone had not yet been installed, his deputy was able to rouse him rapidly. They then found that their equipment had been stored out of doors and was covered in ice and snow, and that when it had been freed the battery of the engine of the pump which inflated their main boom failed after a couple of trial starts so that they could not launch it immediately. It is not clear that this made much difference, however, because although they could not see the oil in the darkness, the wind kept it in position against the shore until it got fight and they were able to launch the boom, and they were eventually able to impound two-thirds of it the next day. At this point another difficulty emerged since it transpired that the oil had congealed at the low prevailing temperature, and no pump could be found capable of dealing with it. The oil was therefore kept corraled within the local Vikoma 'Seapack' boom, and a reinforcement flown up from Orkney, until a blizzard (and presumably the local New Year celebrations, which are also among the things not mentioned) had run their course. After four days the clutch on the engine of the pump on the replacement boom, which was known to be unreliable and should 255
Marine Pollution Bulletin have been replaced, failed, followed by the Z drive on the engine of the p u m p of the original b o o m due to "oil starvation of the bearings", though it could not be discovered whether this was due to poor maintenance or mechanical failure. It took some months and cost £2tA million to clear up the resulting mess, though the SIC have managed to secure reimbursement for their expenditure of £700 000 from the insurers of the tanker, which was subsequently scrapped. The oil industry have been less lucky, and have apparently so far had to bear their larger share of the surely excessive cost as well as all the odium of the disaster. In general, while the report sheds a good deal more light on the incident, it still leaves all the more interesting questions unanswered. It remains unclear whether the way in which the tugs and the tanker were handled made much contribution to the disaster, or whether much more could have been done to contain the oil during the first night, when the first third escaped, or the next four days, when the mobilization of assistance to deal with the remainder while it was held within the booms was hampered by quite appalling local weather and a transport strike on the mainland of Britain. It would certainly have been helpful if the committee had possessed the power to compel the provision of more information about the technical condition of the booms and the tanker. It is unreasonable to expect total candour from all concerned, however, and the unhappy councillors have perhaps now done their best to account for their share of responsibility for the incident. Most of their recommendations have already been put into effect, though I have already expressed the view in the last number of the Bulletin (12, 226) that the provision for booms is still inadequate. Meanwhile the true culprits are escaping attention among the recriminations. It is really the duty of the central government to see that facilities of this size, which are only installed for the national benefit, are run properly, and that responsibility for it is not divided between too many incompetent people. In the present case the SIC were insufficiently experienced to be left in charge of a major oil port, while the oil industry had too much else on their minds to ask them to take responsibility for dealing with the resulting messes. In the event both required greater resources than they had immediately available to handle the oil caught with the booms before it also escaped. Subsequently the SIC lacked both the facilities and the authority to conduct a proper inquiry (though they must have found the attempt highly educational). The official verdict that it was "just bad luck" is really not good enough; it requires something more positive to produce such a shambles, comparable to the state of the national economy. It seems time that some of the more senior people concerned were made directly answerable for the situation, and they do not work in the oil industry or SIC offices, but Whitehall.
• . . and the Situation in the M o r a y Firth So far the most serious single environmental problem in the course of British North Sea oil development is not presented by Shetland, but by the Beatrice oilfield being developed by the British National Oil Corporation in the Moray Firth. It is by far the closest to land, which encircles 256
it on two out of three sides, and lies in the centre of a vast area of magnificent and still largely unspoilt natural scenery and rich fisheries, only twelve miles off the largest seabird colony on the British mainland and immediately up stream from one of the largest concentrations of sea duck. It combines in one package on a small scale all the most tricky elements in the pattern of development, including three platforms producing a particularly thick, waxy type of oil and pumping it through a submarine pipeline laid off a largely inaccessible coast to storage tanks, a possible petrochemical plant, and loading terminal situated at the narrow mouth of a large tidal inlet, where strong currents are likely to spread any oil that is spilt far and wide into sensitive areas. In the circumstances, bearing in mind the extent to which it has now been revealed that inadequate preparations were made for dealing with a rather similar situation at Sullom Voe, there have been growing local and national misgivings whether adequate precautions were being taken to safeguard the very much larger area with many more vulnerable sites at risk around the Moray Firth. Eventually in June BNOC arranged for a series of ten public meetings around its coasts to discuss them. It was rather startling to find the one we attended being conducted by Mike Fenwick, who used to work under Ian Clark, now also with BNOC, for the SIC at the time when the arrangements were made for dealing with Sullom Voe. One can only congratulate him on his smooth presentation of the BNOC case, set out in a glossy brochure backed up with a large, detailed and authoritative-looking Pollution Control Manual. It seems rather unfair after he nearly succeeded in explaining our doubts away to raise them all again. In general it appears that this is rather a small oilfield, only containing about 160 million barrels (a twelfth the size of the Forties field), at a low pressure so that there is less risk of blow-outs. The oil is thick and viscous, so that it solidifies on contact with sea-water at normal temperatures, and has to be treated chemically before it will pass through the pipeline, which means that there is little hope of dispersing it and any that is spilt will have to be collected. The first line of defence is to avoid spills, which is why the oil is being brought ashore by pipe. It might have been a better idea if it was not then to be loaded into tankers at a place where it could do much more damage than if the transaction were undertaken out at sea. Beatrice crude does not seem suitable stuff to pour into the Cromarty Firth. The second line of defence will be provided by booms both at the platform and permanently rigged around the loading terminal, where it is liable to be necessary to deploy them very quickly before the oil is swept away by the current. The adoption of such a procedure, which some of us have been agitating for with little effect for a long time, by a body of the standing of BNOC is an important breakthrough, and deserves the widest attention. It would, for example, have made all the difference during the Esso Bernicia disaster, and it seems a pity that the former Shetland executives now working for BNOC did not think of it before. When the booms fail to contain the oil it is then proposed to follow its movements at sea with buoys and ships and aircraft, and try again to contain it before it comes ashore, which should provide an interesting challenge during the half of the year when the
Volume 12/Number 8/August 1981
"Well I'm blowed! It's the old sofa we dumped just before we left Scarborough!"
development of the worst weather coincides with the shortest day-length. There was a regrettable vagueness about how it would be determined where the oil was likely to go, and how the equipment would be assembled to deal with it there in time when it is only a short distance to either coast of the Moray Firth and they are still separated by an incomplete bridge at Inverness. The amount that is expected of attempts to deal with the oil at sea is indicated by the great attention that has been given to deciding how to deal with it after it comes ashore. The coast has been surveyed in great detail, the correct measures for dealing with oil specified for each section, and an ecologist engaged to monitor the damage. The quality of the appraisal is indicated, however, by the statement in the section dealing with the largest seabird colony that while the birds start to return in January most are only there from April to August, when in point of fact it has been widely known for over a decade now that many start to return in October. Nothing is said at all about the vast flocks present at sea throughout the year. This is frankly not good enough. The authorities, who are apparently using such organizations as the Nature Conservancy Council and Royal Society for the Protection of Birds as consultants, have had ample time to consider this problem, which is likely to become increasingly acute now exploration is to be extended to other blocks in the Moray Firth. The distribution of the birds in particular is now increasingly well-known, and has been confirmed by the RSPB using funds provided by the IUCN. The fact that seabirds are always liable to be present
out at sea and may visit their colonies in the winter, and the steps that may need to be taken in consequence, should have been clear to all concerned since the events in Yorkshire in the early spring of 1977 (Marine Pollution Bulletin 8, 73-74, 1977). If there is still any doubt about when the birds visit the colonies it is demonstrated again in the latest number of Scottish Birds (11, 173-180, 1981). This is not a problem that can easily be dealt with in the way currently proposed, by calling up aircraft and asking them to spray detergent on any embarrassing slicks from a great height, because the type of oil produced by the Beatrice field cannot be disposed of in that way. It is time for much more careful planning of how to follow it and control and collect it and keep birds out of the way until this is done, in any sort of weather. Otherwise eventually, and perhaps as at Sullom Voe sooner rather than later, there will be another unfortunate little incident during a public holiday, but this time instead of hearing about a handful of Otters and Great Northern Divers the nation is going to be confronted with the spectacle on its television screens of a hundred thousand dying oiled birds piled five foot high along many miles of beach, and the sky will really fall on the people responsible for mounting for the second time an inept public relations campaign to persuade us that the situation is under control. They should have kept the Esso Bernicia and scrapped the people who did not prepare for her, instead of transferring them to more important posts elsewhere. W. R. P. BOURNE
257
The Esso Bernicia Report... The onset of North Sea oil development was accompanied by a loud chorus of predictions from people who were not involved and knew nothing about the matter that the ruthless and irresponsible oil industry would soon destroy this fragile natural environment, continually swept by what elsewhere would be called hurricanes, over the heads of its devoted but powerless inhabitants. It therefore seems a little ironic that in the event by far the most serious incident in the British sector to date (the Norwegian sector is another matter) proves to involve a spillage of fuel oil that had nothing to do with the North Sea from a vessel in the care of the Shetland Islands Council, hereafter referred to as the SIC. The background to the incident was described fully in Marine Pollution Bulletin at the time (10, 93-97, 1979), since when we have had to wait a total of 2½ years for an official explanation of the disaster. Now that the long-delayed Royal Opening of the Shetland Oil Terminal has been safely accomplished to the accompaniment of nothing more embarrassing than a small and respectful peripheral explosion from the IRA, this report has at last been released under cover of the associated furore. In the event the Government decided that they did not wish to be associated with the incident and delegated the inquiry into it to the SIC, who set up a committee of the chairmen of their committes (sic) to deal with the matter. Their ultimate conclusion is that it would have been much better handled by an outside body with better technical assistance and a more experienced, legally-qualified, chairman. Presumably owing to legal considerations they appear either to have failed to secure sight of most of the more critical relevant technical reports on what went wrong, or if they did, fail to quote them. It is quite remarkable that the only individual who is found in any way to blame is the person who dared retrospectively to insert four words revealing the basic cause for the incident in the port control room communications log (conscientiously reproduced in facsimile as Appendix 1) when he was not on duty at the time so that it was none of his business. Basically it appears that according to the criteria accepted at the time either three or four tugs might be required for such a vessel, according to the weather conditions, and it was customary for the agents first to order four, as they did by telephone on 28 December, and then follow this up at least twelve hours before the vessel was expected, with a definitive written order, as they did, ordering three tugs, the following day. There is no discussion as to whether financial considerations might affect the number ordered. In the event the tug crews wished to take their 1978-79 New Year holiday at the time, but it was agreed that they should observe the usual procedure for holidays, with three crews on duty and the fourth available at home. The matter was reconsidered during 30 December in the light of the weather, when the pilot, who was ultimately responsible, would initially have preferred to have four tugs, but agreed to make do with three. Everyone appears
0025 - 326X/81/080255 - 0 3 $02.00/0 Pergamon Press Lid.
to agree that it seemed a sound decision at the time and that subsequently the pilot carried out his duties faultlessly. In the middle of the night the Esso Bernicia duly appeared and one tug started to push her in to the jetty while the other two held her steady with warps at the bow and stern against a south-east wind which was tending to blow her on shore. At this point there was a surge in the winch holding the warp on board the new tug Stonechakker at the stern. A faulty coupling in the associated hydraulic system failed, and the hydraulic fluid cascaded over one of the engines and caught fire (there is no discussion whether the way in which the tug was handled might have influenced the moment when the equipment failed). The warp was hastily cast off from the tanker to enable the burning tug to get clear, and while the fire was soon put out, it then took some time for the tug to retrieve the warp, during which it was immobilized and formed an obstruction to manoeuvres around the stern of the tanker. At this point the tug which had been pushing the tanker against the jetty, the Swaabie, which unfortunately was not secured to it, was instructed to move to the stern and make fast in order to prevent it drifting or blowing ashore. Its movements were then hampered by a need to keep clear of the propellors when the tanker briefly tried to steam clear of the jetty. Apparently nobody came at first to make its warp fast to the tanker, it is said because the stern mooring, which was already in place, was coming under strain, and liable to break with catastrophic results. At the same time the bow mooring was released in circumstances which are not fully explained, so that the stern swung inshore and hit the jetty, rupturing the fuel tanks, and the stern mooring duly broke. By the time a trainee pilot had mustered assistance to make the Swaabie fast, and the movements of the tanker were brought under control, the damage had been done, and oil was loose in the harbour in the middle of a bleak northern winter night. It had been agreed a short time before that at this point responsibility for clearing up the mess would be transferred from the SIC to the representatives of the oil industry running the terminal. Although the oil pollution control officer was still so new to the job that his telephone had not yet been installed, his deputy was able to rouse him rapidly. They then found that their equipment had been stored out of doors and was covered in ice and snow, and that when it had been freed the battery of the engine of the pump which inflated their main boom failed after a couple of trial starts so that they could not launch it immediately. It is not clear that this made much difference, however, because although they could not see the oil in the darkness, the wind kept it in position against the shore until it got fight and they were able to launch the boom, and they were eventually able to impound two-thirds of it the next day. At this point another difficulty emerged since it transpired that the oil had congealed at the low prevailing temperature, and no pump could be found capable of dealing with it. The oil was therefore kept corraled within the local Vikoma 'Seapack' boom, and a reinforcement flown up from Orkney, until a blizzard (and presumably the local New Year celebrations, which are also among the things not mentioned) had run their course. After four days the clutch on the engine of the pump on the replacement boom, which was known to be unreliable and should 255
Marine Pollution Bulletin have been replaced, failed, followed by the Z drive on the engine of the p u m p of the original b o o m due to "oil starvation of the bearings", though it could not be discovered whether this was due to poor maintenance or mechanical failure. It took some months and cost £2tA million to clear up the resulting mess, though the SIC have managed to secure reimbursement for their expenditure of £700 000 from the insurers of the tanker, which was subsequently scrapped. The oil industry have been less lucky, and have apparently so far had to bear their larger share of the surely excessive cost as well as all the odium of the disaster. In general, while the report sheds a good deal more light on the incident, it still leaves all the more interesting questions unanswered. It remains unclear whether the way in which the tugs and the tanker were handled made much contribution to the disaster, or whether much more could have been done to contain the oil during the first night, when the first third escaped, or the next four days, when the mobilization of assistance to deal with the remainder while it was held within the booms was hampered by quite appalling local weather and a transport strike on the mainland of Britain. It would certainly have been helpful if the committee had possessed the power to compel the provision of more information about the technical condition of the booms and the tanker. It is unreasonable to expect total candour from all concerned, however, and the unhappy councillors have perhaps now done their best to account for their share of responsibility for the incident. Most of their recommendations have already been put into effect, though I have already expressed the view in the last number of the Bulletin (12, 226) that the provision for booms is still inadequate. Meanwhile the true culprits are escaping attention among the recriminations. It is really the duty of the central government to see that facilities of this size, which are only installed for the national benefit, are run properly, and that responsibility for it is not divided between too many incompetent people. In the present case the SIC were insufficiently experienced to be left in charge of a major oil port, while the oil industry had too much else on their minds to ask them to take responsibility for dealing with the resulting messes. In the event both required greater resources than they had immediately available to handle the oil caught with the booms before it also escaped. Subsequently the SIC lacked both the facilities and the authority to conduct a proper inquiry (though they must have found the attempt highly educational). The official verdict that it was "just bad luck" is really not good enough; it requires something more positive to produce such a shambles, comparable to the state of the national economy. It seems time that some of the more senior people concerned were made directly answerable for the situation, and they do not work in the oil industry or SIC offices, but Whitehall.
• . . and the Situation in the M o r a y Firth So far the most serious single environmental problem in the course of British North Sea oil development is not presented by Shetland, but by the Beatrice oilfield being developed by the British National Oil Corporation in the Moray Firth. It is by far the closest to land, which encircles 256
it on two out of three sides, and lies in the centre of a vast area of magnificent and still largely unspoilt natural scenery and rich fisheries, only twelve miles off the largest seabird colony on the British mainland and immediately up stream from one of the largest concentrations of sea duck. It combines in one package on a small scale all the most tricky elements in the pattern of development, including three platforms producing a particularly thick, waxy type of oil and pumping it through a submarine pipeline laid off a largely inaccessible coast to storage tanks, a possible petrochemical plant, and loading terminal situated at the narrow mouth of a large tidal inlet, where strong currents are likely to spread any oil that is spilt far and wide into sensitive areas. In the circumstances, bearing in mind the extent to which it has now been revealed that inadequate preparations were made for dealing with a rather similar situation at Sullom Voe, there have been growing local and national misgivings whether adequate precautions were being taken to safeguard the very much larger area with many more vulnerable sites at risk around the Moray Firth. Eventually in June BNOC arranged for a series of ten public meetings around its coasts to discuss them. It was rather startling to find the one we attended being conducted by Mike Fenwick, who used to work under Ian Clark, now also with BNOC, for the SIC at the time when the arrangements were made for dealing with Sullom Voe. One can only congratulate him on his smooth presentation of the BNOC case, set out in a glossy brochure backed up with a large, detailed and authoritative-looking Pollution Control Manual. It seems rather unfair after he nearly succeeded in explaining our doubts away to raise them all again. In general it appears that this is rather a small oilfield, only containing about 160 million barrels (a twelfth the size of the Forties field), at a low pressure so that there is less risk of blow-outs. The oil is thick and viscous, so that it solidifies on contact with sea-water at normal temperatures, and has to be treated chemically before it will pass through the pipeline, which means that there is little hope of dispersing it and any that is spilt will have to be collected. The first line of defence is to avoid spills, which is why the oil is being brought ashore by pipe. It might have been a better idea if it was not then to be loaded into tankers at a place where it could do much more damage than if the transaction were undertaken out at sea. Beatrice crude does not seem suitable stuff to pour into the Cromarty Firth. The second line of defence will be provided by booms both at the platform and permanently rigged around the loading terminal, where it is liable to be necessary to deploy them very quickly before the oil is swept away by the current. The adoption of such a procedure, which some of us have been agitating for with little effect for a long time, by a body of the standing of BNOC is an important breakthrough, and deserves the widest attention. It would, for example, have made all the difference during the Esso Bernicia disaster, and it seems a pity that the former Shetland executives now working for BNOC did not think of it before. When the booms fail to contain the oil it is then proposed to follow its movements at sea with buoys and ships and aircraft, and try again to contain it before it comes ashore, which should provide an interesting challenge during the half of the year when the
Volume 12/Number 8/August 1981
"Well I'm blowed! It's the old sofa we dumped just before we left Scarborough!"
development of the worst weather coincides with the shortest day-length. There was a regrettable vagueness about how it would be determined where the oil was likely to go, and how the equipment would be assembled to deal with it there in time when it is only a short distance to either coast of the Moray Firth and they are still separated by an incomplete bridge at Inverness. The amount that is expected of attempts to deal with the oil at sea is indicated by the great attention that has been given to deciding how to deal with it after it comes ashore. The coast has been surveyed in great detail, the correct measures for dealing with oil specified for each section, and an ecologist engaged to monitor the damage. The quality of the appraisal is indicated, however, by the statement in the section dealing with the largest seabird colony that while the birds start to return in January most are only there from April to August, when in point of fact it has been widely known for over a decade now that many start to return in October. Nothing is said at all about the vast flocks present at sea throughout the year. This is frankly not good enough. The authorities, who are apparently using such organizations as the Nature Conservancy Council and Royal Society for the Protection of Birds as consultants, have had ample time to consider this problem, which is likely to become increasingly acute now exploration is to be extended to other blocks in the Moray Firth. The distribution of the birds in particular is now increasingly well-known, and has been confirmed by the RSPB using funds provided by the IUCN. The fact that seabirds are always liable to be present
out at sea and may visit their colonies in the winter, and the steps that may need to be taken in consequence, should have been clear to all concerned since the events in Yorkshire in the early spring of 1977 (Marine Pollution Bulletin 8, 73-74, 1977). If there is still any doubt about when the birds visit the colonies it is demonstrated again in the latest number of Scottish Birds (11, 173-180, 1981). This is not a problem that can easily be dealt with in the way currently proposed, by calling up aircraft and asking them to spray detergent on any embarrassing slicks from a great height, because the type of oil produced by the Beatrice field cannot be disposed of in that way. It is time for much more careful planning of how to follow it and control and collect it and keep birds out of the way until this is done, in any sort of weather. Otherwise eventually, and perhaps as at Sullom Voe sooner rather than later, there will be another unfortunate little incident during a public holiday, but this time instead of hearing about a handful of Otters and Great Northern Divers the nation is going to be confronted with the spectacle on its television screens of a hundred thousand dying oiled birds piled five foot high along many miles of beach, and the sky will really fall on the people responsible for mounting for the second time an inept public relations campaign to persuade us that the situation is under control. They should have kept the Esso Bernicia and scrapped the people who did not prepare for her, instead of transferring them to more important posts elsewhere. W. R. P. BOURNE
257