201629 Scupper plugs not enough

The vessel was doing multiple berth discharge operations in port. The vessel’s crew had disconnected the flexible cargo hose from the port manifold in order to connect the shore hose for discharging cargo.
Before disconnecting the flexible hose (length about 10m), it was blown through with nitrogen into the starboard slop tank. On completion of blowing through, one end of the flexible hose was disconnected from the port manifold, blanked and lowered to main deck with the cargo crane while crew continued to disconnect the other end of the hose from the slop tank manifold.

During this period, approximately 5 to 10 litres of cargo (the chemical 2EH) seeped on to the main deck from the blanked end of the flexible hose. Once the leak was spotted, crew tightened the blanked end of the hose and seepage was arrested. They wiped the deck clean using absorbent pads and removed the chemical cargo odour. Reportedly they used two buckets of fresh water to rinse and mop the deck.

Due to a light snowfall, the main deck was wet and some water/ cargo mixture reached the plugged scupper on the port side and made its way overboard. This created a sheen on the surface of water that was trapped between the ship’s side and berth, which was reported to authorities immediately.

Lessons learned
- Always inspect the blanked flexible cargo hose ends for tightness and adequacy before pumping.
- Always place the disconnected end of the flexible cargo hose atop manifold drip tray, not on deck.
- Always fit scupper plugs tightly into scuppers and double check their tight fit before operations.
- Always activate your ship’s anti-pollution contingency plan immediately, even for a minor spill. Better safe than sorry.
- Pollution prevention is most robust when using a combination of best practices such as above, not just relying on your scupper plugs as the ultimate barrier.