Sea lettuce removal (FOI)

​Request

A

In what years has sea lettuce (Ulva spp) been removed from the high tide line and taken down to the beach to be dumped?

B

What money has been paid to non-States employees (ie private sector contractors, hauliers etc.) to carry out this work?

C

What is the anticipated cost of this year's scheme whereby the sea lettuce is being loaded onto a sea going vessel for dumping at sea?

D

Where is the sea lettuce being dumped?

Response

A

Sea lettuce collected from the beach along St Aubin’s Bay has been taken to the low water mark every year since 2000, with the exception of 2013 when no heavy deposits of sea lettuce occurred.

B

The data required to answer this question in not held in a specific form for sea lettuce as the budget it is paid from covers other cleaning service contracted work carried out by the contractors in question. In line with the Corporate Records Management Retention Schedule records are not held going back for 17 years. It is estimated that to analyse the more recent records held would exceed the permitted time for answering Freedom of Information requests therefore Article 16 (Costs Excessive) of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has been applied to this question.

C

The seasonal cost is a variable, however it is anticipated that the annual allocation of £30,000 from the Cleaning Services budget for sea lettuce and other sea weed clearance work may be exceeded. If this is exceeded due to the sea trials the provision will need to be made from within the Department of Infrastructure's existing budgets.

D

The dumping at sea is restricted to an area known as the ‘Foul Ground’, approximately five to six kilometres to the south of St Helier which is the designated area for disposing of dredged marine materials.

Article and regulation applied

Article 16 A scheduled public authority may refuse to supply information if cost excessive

(1) A scheduled public authority that has been requested to supply information may refuse to supply the information if it estimates that the cost of doing so would exceed an amount determined in the manner prescribed by Regulations.

Regulation 2 (1) of the Freedom of Information (Costs) (Jersey) Regulations 2014 allows an authority to refuse a request for information where the estimated cost of dealing with the request would exceed the specified amount of the cost limit of £500. This is the estimated cost of one person spending 12.5 working hours in determining whether the department holds the information, locating, retrieving and extracting the information.