A “Marine Dead Zone”: The Impact of the Larne Lough Gas Caverns on Ocean Conservation Efforts
This article continues our LLB student essay series, which brings together a selection of writings from our ‘Law and Sustainability in the Anthropocene’ course.
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By Elizabeth Hamilton
In 2012, the Harland and Wolff Group was granted planning permission to construct caverns capable of holding 500 million cubic metres of gas under the seabed of Larne Lough in Northern Ireland. Larne Lough, a sea loch located on the coast of County Antrim and a legally recognised “Special Area of Conservation” has now been deemed as being environmentally
degraded. Harland and Wolff have acknowledged the “potential” detrimental impact the project would have on the environment within their Environmental Impact Statement determining the project would be detrimental to marine life and is a controversial decision amid a climate emergency, which was officially declared by the Northern Irish Assembly in 2020. The legal battle between the Harland and Wolff Group and conservation groups is still ongoing with the rejection of judicial review in 2023 proving insufficient in dismissing concerns.
In this article, the project will be analysed through the lens of international law (UNCLOS) with the recent rejection of judicial review for the undertaking of this project being scrutinised. Overall, the construction of these gas caverns leads to the question of whether UNCLOS is successful in its aim of balancing ocean conservation and state sovereignty with natural resource utilisation.
The Gas Cavern Project: An Overview
In 2010, a substantial layer of salt was discovered under Larne Lough, which was determined as “ideal for the establishment of underground gas storage caverns”. The caverns will be formed through the construction process of salt mining. This procedure creates chambers within the salt layer by pumping seawater through it causing the salt to dissolve, this will then cause a mass discharge of highly concentrated salt brine into the North Channel. The waste brine that will be created through the formation of the caverns will be the main cause of the “marine dead zone.” A “marine dead zone” is an area of the ocean where little to no oxygen is present resulting in marine life being unable to survive. In 2023, environmental conservation groups Friends of the Earth and No Gas Caverns brought the project to court, however, the extensive work of both conservationist groups and their legal teams failed to sway to favouring actions that uphold environmental protection.
A Breach of International Law?
UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea) outlines state responsibility for the conservation of living resources in an EEZ (Exclusive Economic Zone) (Article 61) with the additional obligation to “protect and preserve rare and fragile ecosystems”(Article 194 (5)). Although UNCLOS enforcement differs depending on the maritime zone each state is contained within, this is a baseline principle that states involved agree to and should consider. Northern Ireland ratified UNCLOS in 1996 subsequently passing the Maritime Jurisdiction Act in 2006; the act was last amended in 2021 however it does not seem as though ocean conservation in line with UNCLOS was taken into as much account as it should have when placing the latest amendment only a year on from the declaration of a climate emergency from the Northern Irish Assembly. The Maritime Jurisdiction Act 2021 outlines the sovereignty of the state regarding “the exploration, exploitation, conservation and management of the natural resources.” The Act also outlines the sovereign right of the state for the “storage of natural gas and other energy products” within the EEZ placing state sovereignty to exploit and extract above its duty to conserve and protect marine life.
The Larne Lough project demonstrated a dismissal of adverse human activity and has put into practice the upper hand fossil fuel corporations have in environmental law. The project has proved that there must be more stringent domestic laws that codify not only economic benefits but also the conservation of marine life. The case has proved the relentless issue of prioritisation of profit over sustainability and has furthered discourse surrounding the effectiveness of current international and domestic environmental regimes. The rejection of judicial review although disheartening, has put the effect of adverse human activity further into the spotlight and has pushed the cause for greater efforts to conserve marine biodiversity into the public domain.
