SITES

	Greatham, Teesside, UK
	West Site, Billingham, UK
	Grimsby, Humberside, UK
	Calais, France
	Huelva, Spain
	Scarlino, Italy
	Teluk Kalung, Malaysia
	Umbogintwini, South Africa
Habitats on the Umbogintwini Site Birds of the Production Site Conservation Areas at Umbogintwini Industrial Complex Offshore Biodiversity Management
	Lake Charles, USA
	Burnie, Tasmania

Index by Category

Appendices

References

Umbogintwini, South Africa

Offshore

After treatment wastewater from the Tioxide site is discharged into the Indian Ocean. Since production started on the site the company has carried out regular and extensive assessments of the invertebrate fauna around this out-fall. Detailed discussion of these invertebrate communities is outside the scope of this report², except to note that large and diverse populations of animals including molluscs, annelids and crustaceans exist in the sea areas around the out-fall.

It is widely accepted that the discharge of wastewater from the Tioxide site into the ocean at this point has had no significant impact on sea-life. The abundant invertebrates support large fish populations that in turn attract numbers of predators.
These can be particularly numerous during the seasonal movements of Sardines along the coast. In June 2000 nearly 600 sharks, mainly Bronze Whaler (Carcharhinus brachyurus) but also some Tiger Sharks (Galeocerdo cuvier) and the odd Great White Shark (Carcharodon carchrias) were seen in the vicinity of the Tioxide outfall. There were also hundreds of Bottle-nosed Dolphins (probably Tursiops aduncus but also possibly T.truncates) and slightly further south numbers of seabirds such as Cape Gannets (Sula capensis), albatrosses³ and various terns (J. Pitts pers. comm.).

² Detailed reports on the regular biological surveys are kept by Tioxide.

³ Four species of albatross, Wandering, Shy, Black-browed (Diomedea melanophris) and Yellow-nosed are more or less regular visitors to South African waters. Black-browed Albatross and Yellow-nosed Albatross are the most common (Sinclair 1993).