by Hans Marter

KIMO, the environmental pressure group of local authorities of northern seas, has called on shipping minister Glenda Jackson to press on the European level for more maritime safety following the Alandia Stream incident in the Fair Isle channel two weeks ago.

Rick Nickerson, the secretary of KIMO which represents more than 100 coastal authorities in seven countries,  said yesterday (THU) he would like to see Ms Jackson acting in a "pro-active rather than a re-active" way.

He said: "I am calling on Ms Jackson to be pro-active on preventing accidents and that means going for regional solutions and pressing the European Commission to implement safety measures. The European Commission should go ahead and show the way."

The Alandia Stream broke down in the Fair Isle Channel with 78,000 tons of crude on board in the early hours of the 26th June, drifting for 17 hours close to Fair Isle, before being put under tow by the tug Anglian Prince.

Mr Nickerson was reacting to a letter he received from shipping minister Glenda Jackson where she points out the UK's success in implementing the recommendations made by Lord Donaldson following the grounding of the Braer in Shetland in January 1993.

Ms Jackson wrote: "I announced in October 1997 that we had implemented the bulk of the inquiry's recommendations, …. We have made further progress since then. We remain committed to the implementation of all the recommendations that we have accepted."

But Mr Nickerson said six years after the Braer, and five years after the Sea Empress, marine safety has not got anywhere despite the implementation of the majority of recommendation made by Lord Donaldson in his report "Safer Ships - Cleaner Seas".

Refering to the "local European approach" Mr Nickerson said there had been a number of marine incidents during the last months that could have been avoided.

In March this year the chemical tanker Multitank Ascania broke down in the Pentland Firth while in autumn last year the cargo vessel Pallas ran aground in the Watten Sea in the border region between Denmark and Germany polluting wide areas with bunker oil and killing around 16,000 seabirds.

He said it was "rather ironic" that the International Marine Organisation, IMO, was discussing the type of transponders to be used for tracking vessels, when the EU is implementing a transponder scheme to track, and crack down, on black fish landings.