THE EMERGENCY response to a major oil spill in the Firth of Forth has been exposed as flawed and confused by an official report leaked to the Sunday Herald.

Communication breakdowns and clean-up problems revealed by the latest emergency exercise have re-ignited fears over controversial plans for pumping millions of tonnes of Russian crude oil between tankers in the estuary.

Officials who took part in the exercise also come under fire for refusing to apologise for the incident and for their "macabre humour". One government official joked about how divers could make money from a ship which sank.

The exercise, code-named Black Wednesday, envisaged a tanker leaking oil near a bird reserve at Aberlady Bay after colliding with - and sinking - a bulk cargo vessel. It was played out on October 4 last year and involved 18 councils, companies and other agencies.

Repeated failings in the emergency procedures for dealing with the spillage have been detailed in a post-mortem report on the exercise drawn up by all the agencies.

Communications were "somewhat difficult", it concluded. Information on when pollution would reach the shore was "contradictory", predictions of how the oil slick would spread were "unreadable" and map references were wrong. There was "confusion" over which detergents could be used to disperse the oil.

Some agencies reported that 100 tonnes of oil had been spilt, while others said 150 tonnes. Communications in the emergency co-ordinating centre were said to be "poor" because reception for mobile phones was unreliable and there was no wireless internet.

Unclear lines of responsibility also created problems, the report said. "Confusion not only detracts from an effective response but can reduce the morale of those in the team, leading to additional problems for incident management and a sense of personal failure."

The way the media was handled during the exercise also came in for fierce criticism in the report. Agencies were criticised for refusing to apologise for the spillage, though the oil company Shell had willingly done so.

An unnamed representative from the government's Maritime and Coastguard Agency risked negative headlines by suggesting that the sinking of the bulk carrier was "not a problem" because "they'll just send in the divers and make some money".

Forth Ports, the private company which acts as the harbour authority, was concerned about the messages being inadvertently conveyed by speakers at a press conference. It suggested "having a table cloth on the front of the tables on the podium to cover the body language visible below the table". Forth Ports has been backing plans to transfer eight million tonnes of Russian oil a year between tankers anchored four miles off the Fife coast. The company, which stands to make £6 million a year from licensing the transfers, is currently assessing their safety.

The mishaps during the Black Wednesday exercise were seized upon by environmentalists campaigning against the ship-to-ship oil plans. "This is a worrying indication of how authorities might respond to a real oil spill from ship-to-ship transfers, an incident that could devastate the area," said Green MSP Mark Ruskell.

Dr Tricia Bradley from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds in Scotland urged Forth Ports to "make sure their operations are exemplary before they permit any potentially dangerous activity in such a sensitive environment".

A spokesman for Forth Ports said: "The commitment of Forth Ports to safety is such that we hold annual exercises - not every three years as required. By holding regular exercises, we ensure high standards of safety."