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22nd December 2010

Salt Shipments Bound for Cork

As artic conditions persist throughout the country, another shipment of rock-salt is due to arrive at the port of Cork tonight, writes Jehan Ashmore.
The cargo-ship, CFL Prospect with 6,300 tonnes of salt onboard, set sail from the Mediterranean over a week ago and is expected to dock at Cork city-centre around midnight. The vessel's cargo will be unloaded tomorrow morning at the South Quays where over 100 trucks will distribute the salt to authorities around the country. Further shipments totalling 15,000 tonnes are due to be handled by the port over the festive period.

In total the National Roads Authority (NRA) will have 25,000 tonnes of salt available during the Christmas week, with 3,000 tonnes distributed to authorities on a daily basis. As a priority the salt will be used to grit the national primary network.  

The second bout of artic conditions that has gripped the country with temperatures plummeting to -17 degrees in the west and -15 degrees is forecast tonight in the north-west. Further snowfalls are also due in various regions tonight and with sub-zero temperatures expected to last up to St. Stephens Day. As such the demand for salt supplies has soared resulting in shipments sourced from overseas countries to include Turkey and Egypt.

CFL Prospect (see video-clip here) is owned by the Dutch shipping company, Kees Koolhof which since 2006 has built up a fleet of modern vessels to trade in the short-sea sector. The 2007 built vessel is one of nine Jumbo 6500s from a series completed by the Peters Shipyard at Krampen.

For the latest NRA's road weather stations logon here in addition to weather forecasts from www.met.ie

 

Published in Weather

Coastal Notes Coastal Notes covers a broad spectrum of stories, events and developments in which some can be quirky and local in nature, while other stories are of national importance and are on-going, but whatever they are about, they need to be told.

Stories can be diverse and they can be influential, albeit some are more subtle than others in nature, while other events can be immediately felt. No more so felt, is firstly to those living along the coastal rim and rural isolated communities. Here the impact poses is increased to those directly linked with the sea, where daily lives are made from earning an income ashore and within coastal waters.

The topics in Coastal Notes can also be about the rare finding of sea-life creatures, a historic shipwreck lost to the passage of time and which has yet many a secret to tell. A trawler's net caught hauling more than fish but cannon balls dating to the Napoleonic era.

Also focusing the attention of Coastal Notes, are the maritime museums which are of national importance to maintaining access and knowledge of historical exhibits for future generations.

Equally to keep an eye on the present day, with activities of existing and planned projects in the pipeline from the wind and wave renewables sector and those of the energy exploration industry.

In addition Coastal Notes has many more angles to cover, be it the weekend boat leisure user taking a sedate cruise off a long straight beach on the coast beach and making a friend with a feathered companion along the way.

In complete contrast is to those who harvest the sea, using small boats based in harbours where infrastructure and safety poses an issue, before they set off to ply their trade at the foot of our highest sea cliffs along the rugged wild western seaboard.

It's all there, as Coastal Notes tells the stories that are arguably as varied to the environment from which they came from and indeed which shape people's interaction with the surrounding environment that is the natural world and our relationship with the sea.